Escape
by Baron Zed
Summary: Kushina is sealed into Naruto at the same time as the Kyuubi. When Naruto is 5, she awakens in his mindscape and starts teaching him. Naruto is a true shapeshifter due to the Kyuubi and begins to pose as his own sister in order to escape his reputation.
1. Prologue

Naruto and his friends were created by Kishimoto Masashi. This is fan fiction.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I probably shouldn't be writing this as I'm starting to have too many fics in my rotation, but my muse wouldn't leave me alone.

* * *

"Minato-koi," Kushina begged, "don't do this to him! Let me seal it back into myself and take it with me into the grave! I'm dying anyway."

"If we do that, it will just reform in the middle of Konoha in nine years," Minato protested. "I don't like it either, but this is our only choice."

Kushina began to cry. She knew how jinchuuriki were treated in other places. The only reason she had gotten off lightly was that very few people knew. That monster Danzou had always been after her. With neither Minato or herself to protect him, would he get his claws on her baby?

"Seal me inside him too!" she commanded.

Minato faltered. "What?"

"I'm dying anyway. This way I can help him and make sure he can survive. You were planning on using _that_ technique—don't deny it! With neither of us there, he'll need something. Plus, I can teach him his heritage. He's the last Uzumaki, Minato, but without me to teach him, so much will be lost."

Minato nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe I could seal a Shadow Clone of myself in him too."

Kushina and Minato started to toss back and forth ideas on how to modify the Eight Trigrams Seal they were using as a base to accomplish what they wanted, while Minato made sketches. They were both Seal Masters, but they had different styles. Kushina had an intuitive, outside-the-box understanding on how seals worked that was common in her clan. Minato had a very analytical style that was much more methodical. Together they could do amazing things.

They had just finished designing how to get their baby's chakra to support her within the seal and bring her out of stasis once he had enough, when they heard the Kyuubi's roar.

"No time," Minato said sadly.

"It won't take long to duplicate what we've done here to support both of us," Kushina protested.

Minato shook his head. "If it's unbalanced, it will bring down the whole array."

"Maybe you should be the one then. . ." Kushina said.

"No," Minato interrupted firmly. "He'll need his mother. Plus, I'm the one who has to do the sealing, you don't have the strength right now. It will work better if it's you in there."

Minato picked up their son, Naruto, and gave him a kiss on the forehead. He placed him in Kushina's arms and then gave her a firm, but brief kiss on the lips. He grabbed her shoulders and they disappeared in a yellow flash.

They appeared at a personal retreat that Minato liked to use, just outside of Konoha. Minato disappeared in another yellow flash and reappeared with a couple of blankets and boxes. Minato set the boxes up to make a stand on which to lay Naruto, so that he could paint the seal on his stomach. The arrangement kind of reminded Kushina of an altar with Naruto's blanket draped over the top of it. She lay down beside the stand.

"Almost done, Koi," he said. "I just need some blood." He handed her a kunai and she pricked her thumb with it and then handed it back.

"I could have held the beast down while you worked," Kushina said.

"This'll work better if you save your chakra," he said. "Hiruzen-san and the others can hold the beast off for a few minutes. You should say your last words to him now. You won't see him again for a few years."

"I don't want to steal your time," she protested, "since you won't see him again."

"I've managed to put a little of my chakra in him like a Shadow Clone, but I don't have the time to make it self-sustaining. I'll be able to have a few minutes with him. I'll leave the trigger in your hands."

A flash of hope shot through her. If she was patient, she might have time to figure out how to adapt Naruto's chakra to reinforce Minato's.

"As soon as I leave, I'll grab the Kyuubi and start the sealing immediately," he said. He turned to their son. "I'm really sorry about this, Son. Listen to your mother. She'll help you out. I love you."

With another yellow flash he was gone.

Kushina started babbling. She was not quite sure what she was saying. Before long, her husband reappeared with the Kyuubi. He ran toward them and yelled, "Seal."

A giant specter with a tanto appeared above them, summoned by the Death Reaper Seal that reinforced the Eight Trigrams Seal. It parted the giant fox with its blade and then shoved half of it into Minato and the other half into Naruto. The last thing she saw was her husband being pulled into the specter's mouth.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Since the Prologue is short, I'm uploading Chapter 1 as well.


	2. Chapter 1: Mother

Five-year-old Uzumaki Naruto was lonely. Everyone in the orphanage ignored him. They were not explicitly mean to him—the only matron who tried was escorted away by masked shinobi—but they only interacted with him when required. It started with the matrons and trickled down to the other orphans. Occasionally a new child would play with him for a short time, but they all eventually gave in to peer pressure. Several times a few kids had tried to pick on him. The matrons stopped that quickly enough, but in the process they encouraged the bullies to ignore him. All he wanted was a single friend. Was that too much to ask?

The only person who was his friend was the Old Man that everyone called "Hokage-sama," but he only visited Naruto once a month for about an hour. The Old Man always took him to get ramen at a little stand. The shop owner and his daughter were both friendly, but they were usually too busy to do more than greet him.

Naruto lay in his bed staring at the ceiling. Unlike the other orphans, he got his own small room. The matrons talked like it was a privilege, but he felt like it was just another tool to keep him lonely. He sighed and rolled over and tried to go to sleep.

* * *

Naruto awoke in a meadow. The sky was a pale gray that seemed to fade into white. He could not tell if the gray was due to fog or something else. The edges of the meadow seemed to fade into gray where there were not any trees, so he figured it was an odd fog. The only prominent things in the meadow were a small creek and a two-story house about the size of the orphanage.

Shrugging his shoulders, Naruto approached the house. He knocked on the door, but nobody answered. After a minute, he tried the door knob. It was unlocked, so he opened the door and went in the house. The house was nicely furnished. He noticed some pictures on the wall. The pictures were of a pretty red-haired lady and a blond man, either alone or together. Oddly, the face of the blond man was always fuzzed out. There was a bookshelf. He scanned the books. He did not know many kanji yet, so most of the book titles were meaningless to him. One however, stood out: _History of the Uzumaki Clan_. He excitedly picked it off the shelf and opened it up. More kanji—most of them were unfamiliar. With a sigh, he placed it back on the shelf.

He wandered around the main floor, there were two locked doors. One might have led to the basement and the other to an office. Upstairs appeared to be mostly bedrooms. One appeared to be a guest room and most of the rest were empty. One of them pulled at his heartstrings. It was a nursery with the word "Naruto" spelled out in hiragana on a crib. The room was lovingly set up. It was only missing a baby. He climbed into the crib and lay there for at least ten minutes. He had to scrunch up his knees, because even though he was small for a five-year-old, he was too big to lay flat.

Eventually, he left the room to look at the rest. In the largest of the bedrooms, a red-haired woman lay on the bed. She was wearing a green dress over a white blouse and her hair was kept out of her face by a green hairclip. She was the same woman as in the pictures, and she appeared to be asleep.

Naruto imagined that she was his mother. He thought she must be a relative, at least, between the crib and the Uzumaki book.

He frowned. This must be a dream. There was no way he would just go to sleep in the orphanage and then appear here otherwise. He sighed. It was a good dream.

He put a hand on the woman's elbow and shook it a little. Even if it were a dream, it would still be nice to know what was going on.

She began to stir.

"Excuse me, Ma'am," he said. "I'm not sure where I am. Can you help me?"

The woman sat up a little and looked at him. "Naruto-chan?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm Naruto. Who are you?"

"I'm your mother," she said, smiling brightly.

"Momma?" Naruto responded as the woman gathered him into a hug.

He started to sniffle a little.

"What's wrong, Naruto-chan?" she asked.

"This is such a nice dream. I'll be sad to wake up."

"Do you have such a bad life, Naruto-chan?" his mother asked.

"I don't know. Nobody's mean to me, but nobody will play with me either. Only the Old Man and the Ichirakus are nice to me."

"Ichiraku? The ramen stand owner?" she asked.

He nodded.

"They have the best ramen!" his mother said happily.

He nodded enthusiastically. "Did you eat there often?"

She chuckled. "More than I should have." She got a serious look on her face. "This is a special kind of dream, Naruto-chan."

"Special? How?" he asked.

"I was dying because of something that happened the day you were born. Your father and I made a special technique that put part of me inside you before I died. It took a while for you to get enough chakra to support that piece of me, but now that you do, you can come to this special place in your mind and talk to me. At first you'll only be able to do this while asleep, but eventually you'll be able to enter a special trance to come here whenever you want."

"Is Daddy here too?" Naruto asked.

She shook her head sadly. "We didn't have enough time to figure out how to put both of us in here. I think he left enough of himself in here to last a few minutes, but I want to save that until you're older."

"Why is his picture fuzzed out downstairs?" he asked.

"Your daddy and I had enemies that we don't want to find out about you yet. I won't tell you our names until you've shown me you can keep a secret. Your daddy has a very famous face, so I fuzzed out the pictures while I was creating this place."

"You made this?" he asked, impressed.

She smiled. "The technique that your daddy and I made gives me limited control over this part of your mindscape. I chose to make it look like our house."

"Mindscape?"

"It's a fancy word for the part of your mind where we can meet," she said.

"I saw the Uzumaki book downstairs. Is that Daddy's family?" he asked.

She smiled again. "No, Sweetie, that's my family. Did the Sandaime give you the Uzumaki name?"

He nodded.

"Good. I don't want you to talk about the book to anyone outside the mindscape. This will be your test, okay? If you can keep the fact that you're a part of the real Uzumaki clan a secret, I'll tell you about your father when you turn eight, okay?"

"Not even Jiichan?" he asked.

"Not yet, Naruto-chan."

They spent several hours talking. Naruto told her about the orphanage and the Old Man. His mother told him about how pleased she and his father were to have him and a little bit about her life. Eventually he fell asleep for real.

* * *

The next night Naruto appeared in the mindscape meadow again after going to sleep to his immense relief.

"I'm glad it was real," he said to himself.

His mother was waiting for him in the front room of the house.

"What do you want to do when you're older, Naruto-chan?" she asked.

"You and Daddy were shinobi, right?" he asked.

"That's right," she answered.

"That's what I want to be too!" he exclaimed.

She smiled at him. "Good, I can start you training in the mindscape. You'll still have to practice in the real world."

"I'm ready!" he exclaimed. "What is it?"

She giggled and ruffled his hair. "The most important thing for an Uzumaki shinobi to learn is calligraphy!"

"What!?" he shouted.

"Our clan was famous for its sealing skills. Your father was pretty good at it too, even though he wasn't an Uzumaki. You need to have very good handwriting and calligraphy skills for sealing."

"Okay!" he said.

* * *

The orphanage matrons were not too pleased at the amount of paper and ink that Naruto wanted to use. They could not forbid him completely since they were supposed to be teaching the children to read and write, but they limited him to a sheet of paper a day. He thought about asking the Old Man for more paper and ink, but decided not to since he did not have a good excuse for it that would not expose his secret.

His momma had him practice writing with both hands because it "would not do to lose your most versatile and valuable tool due to an injury."

The other thing his momma had him doing was physical exercises. Most of them did not have any effect in the mindscape, so she showed him how to do them and then told him how many of each to do in real life.

The orphanage taught him the standard kanji he should know for his age, but ignored him when he asked for more. Luckily, his momma taught him as much as he wanted to know. In general, he did not care for reading, but whenever he asked his momma to read _The History of the Uzumaki Clan_ book to him, she told him to read it himself. He suspected it was to motivate him to learn his kanji.

He asked her how she had made the books appear in his mindscape. She had told him that it was a special seal that had captured the state of their house at a specific point in time and then allowed her to reconstruct anything that was in it at that time in her mindscape. She told him that it was useful for studying on long missions.

* * *

He asked his momma why everyone was so cold to him. She got sad and told him that she would tell him when he was twelve.

"It's not your fault, Naruto-chan," she said. "People are stupid, especially when it's about things they really don't understand. The reason is a little complicated and I don't want you to take it the wrong way, so I'm going to have to ask you to wait."

"Okay, Momma," he said. "As long as you don't hate me, I'll be alright."

* * *

When Naruto turned six, his momma started teaching him basic taijutsu and told him how to awaken his chakra. After he awoke his chakra, she showed him chakra control exercises, starting with leaf sticking.

When he complained how boring it was, she said, "I know it's boring, but if you don't start controlling your chakra now, it will be much more difficult to do it later."

"What's so important about that leaf sticking can teach me?" he asked.

"It leads to walking on walls and water later," she answered. "That's pretty cool, right?"

He nodded and started bouncing excitedly.

"There are also a few other cool things you can do if your chakra control is good enough, including my signature technique. Do you want to see?"

"Yeah!"

She held out her hand and a chain flew out of it and struck a tree on the edge of the meadow.

"Cool!" he exclaimed. "Will I be able to do that?"

She nodded. "If your chakra control is good enough, you should be able to. Most Uzumaki can. My chakra is special in that my chains can suppress other people's chakra. That's actually fairly rare, so I don't know if you'll be able to do that, but you should be able to form the chains. The few Uzumaki who can't do it, can duplicate the ability, including the chakra suppression, with a seal.

"The other very useful thing you can do with good-enough chakra control is to manifest a temporary seal with your chakra. It only works with seals you've memorized absolutely, but it allows you to use them in combat once you get good at it. I can actually make the seals form at the end of my chains."

"Awesome!" Naruto exclaimed and redoubled his efforts at leaf sticking.


	3. Chapter 2: Academy

About seven months after Naruto's sixth birthday, the Old Man allowed him to enter the Shinobi Academy. Based on one of his momma's stories, he loudly proclaimed that he would be Hokage when he grew up. The class laughed at him and the teacher got angry.

The Academy was boring. Mostly it was learning history, math, and language with some pretty simple physical exercises thrown in. His momma told him the curriculum would expand as he got older.

His teacher at the Academy treated him worse than the orphanage matrons. His work was graded much more harshly than anyone else's. By this time his handwriting was impeccable, but the teacher always found mistakes. When he asked his momma about it, she explained that she had taught him the Uzu style which was slightly different than the Hi style, but that the instructor should not be marking him down for that difference. The few times he tried adding the extra flourishes of the Hi style, the instructor still found excuses to mark him down, so he went back to the Uzu style.

Besides grading his work more harshly, the teacher also ignored him. If he raised his hand or stood up, the instructor "didn't see him." If he just spoke his question, he was sent into the hall for "disrupting the class." Sometimes he was sent into the hall without doing anything. Despite this, he was in solidly in the middle of the class. He shuddered to think of where he would be if it were not for his momma helping him. He thought about complaining about the unfair treatment to the Old Man, but decided that whining about only getting average scores was not his style and he started pranking the teacher instead.

His momma confessed that she had been a prankster when she had been in the Academy, which only made him redouble his efforts. At first, he got caught pretty often, which dropped his standing to near the bottom as the teacher took away "citizenship points." After a while he stopped getting caught, but since he had a reputation and was disliked, the teacher always blamed him anyway.

The other students treated him like the orphans did, except that the teachers did not stop the bullying. He made a few friends at first, but they did not last long. One or two admitted that their parents had told them to stay away from him. Before long, even the ones that had not been warned by parents, stayed away due to peer pressure. The bullying led to fights that were always Naruto's fault no matter who started it, which contributed to his loss of "citizenship points." Naruto's taijutsu was good enough that he usually won, which limited the physical bullying.

* * *

He did make an effort to stamp out bullying whenever he encountered it. Usually his efforts went unrewarded. Sometimes he would make a friend for a few days, but inevitably they would succumb to the peer pressure or their parents' wishes.

The most notable people he helped were a pink-haired girl who he sometimes saw around the Academy and a pale-eyed girl named Hinata who was whisked away by a servant or relative. The pink-haired girl, Sakura, was friendly for longer than normal, but she succumbed eventually. He saw the pale-eyed girl sometimes, but she never approached him.

* * *

In the second Academy year they started basic taijutsu and shuriken practice. Naruto was better than most of the class in both of those due to instruction from his momma, but the instructor usually found a reason to mark him lower than he should have.

He did notice that there were some new kids that got moved in from a different class. The only one that stood out was Uchiha Sasuke. Sasuke was the only kid that routinely beat Naruto in taijutsu. Sasuke's main advantage was that he used a more advanced taijutsu style. He was a little bit aloof, but friendly in general. Sasuke was the only kid that did not ignore Naruto.

He asked his momma if their clan had an advanced taijutsu style. She told them that there had been several but that she only knew one of them.

When he asked to learn it, she said, "The taijutsu style I know is for women. It wouldn't help you that much, Sweetie."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Women's strength comes from their hips, while men's come from their shoulders. Chakra helps offset this, but chakra multiplies the existing strength. A woman will always get more out of a taijutsu style centered around hip movement. A man _can_ use that type of style, but would get more out of one designed around their upper body."

"So I could use your style, it just wouldn't be the best style for me?" he asked.

"Well," she said, "some modifications would still need to be made. At your age there isn't a huge difference between boys and girls, but starting in a few years there starts to be more differences. These are centered around the fact that a woman's pelvis is shaped differently than a man's. Women walk, run, and kick differently. Women also tend to be shorter and a few other things."

"Couldn't you change it to work for me?" he pleaded.

"Maybe, but it would be better for you to pick one that's more suited to you to begin with. It's too bad, because taijutsu was one of my specialties, but I never learned more than the general basics and my specific style."

A few months into the year, Sasuke changed. He was gone from class for a month and when he came back he was not just aloof, but dark and brooding. From that point, Sasuke started ignoring him and everyone else. Naruto heard rumors that Sasuke's clan had been murdered. He tried to befriend the boy, but was brushed off.

When he talked to his momma about it, she took it badly.

"Uchiha Mikoto was my best friend," she said. "Itachi-chan did it!? He was such a nice boy! It's too bad Sasuke is so unfriendly. Mikoto and I always wanted you two to be friends. I'm kind of surprised she hasn't been active in your life."

"I've never seen her," Naruto said.

"Ah, probably politics or her jerk-of-a-husband is keeping her away."

* * *

On Naruto's eighth birthday, his momma told him that his daddy was the Fourth Hokage. That made him super excited, since the Fourth was his hero. The pictures in the mindscape house stopped having fuzzy faces. His momma emphasized the importance of keeping the secret since there were many in Iwa and Kumo that hated his daddy and would take the opportunity to take revenge through him. She told him there were even a few in Konoha who did not like his daddy, but he found it hard to believe since his daddy had saved Konoha several times. This made him even more determined to be the best Hokage ever.

* * *

In the third Academy year, they learned kunai throwing and more taijutsu.

In the fourth year they awakened their chakra, if they had not already, and learned leaf sticking. If Naruao had not already done so, it would have been difficult as the teacher always sent him out during the explanations on the chakra control exercise and why it was important.

In the fifth year they started to learn their first ninjutsu, the Clone Technique. Despite having good chakra control, Naruto could not do it.

When he asked his momma about it, she said, "Although it's classed as a ninjutsu, the Clone Technique is actually a genjutsu. Uzumaki typically have trouble with genjutsu due to our dense chakra and high chakra reserves, especially genjutsu with small chakra requirements. I could never do the Clone Technique unless I made at least 20 clones."

"Should I do that? Make a bunch of clones?" he asked.

"I would not recommend it," she said. "From what you've told me of your teacher, he would just keep failing you until you could make just one and would look for more ways to sabotage you. I think this will actually be a good test as to whether your teacher actually cares about you. If your teacher actually helps you figure out why you can't do the Clone Technique, he's a good teacher."

"I already know my teacher hates me!" Naruto said. "I don't see him changing his mind."

"Eventually you'll get a new teacher once enough kids drop out and they merge classes."

His chakra reserves kept expanding. This did not help make Clone any easier. To counter that, his momma taught him how to climb trees with chakra.

* * *

In the latter part of the fifth year, the class learned the Disguise Technique. The teacher tried to stop Naruto from learning the new ninjutsu because he had not learned the Clone Technique yet. He was able to figure out how to do it by spying on the other kids. He picked up the technique without too much difficulty. He was a little surprised at how easy it was since he thought it might really be a genjutsu too.

"Disguise was easy for me too," his momma admitted. "Much easier than I thought it would be since Clone always gave me trouble. They're actually somewhat similar techniques, although Disguise takes more chakra."

Naruto practiced Disguise extensively, since it was the only ninjutsu he knew. The amount of chakra it took depended on the complexity of the change. Since he had more chakra than his classmates, he did not have any problem changing into almost anything. If he changed his size there was a chakra cost to keeping the technique going, but if it was something his own size, it cost nothing—or almost nothing—to maintain.

His momma also started teaching him the basics of sealing theory. This included the characters used in seals and how the geometry of the seal influenced how the characters related to each other. She had him make some basic seals that changed color when chakra was added to specific characters.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** There can be some debate about whether the standard Transformation Technique (Henge) is a real or illusionary technique in canon Naruto. As far as I know only when Naruto is involved can it be shown to be physical, although no one is surprised when he changes into a shuriken that works. My view is that it would be too OP for an E-rank if it were a real, physical change. This is why I call it Disguise in my fics.


	4. Chapter 3: New Tricks

On his tenth birthday, he complained to his mom, "My taijutsu's hit a plateau. I'm not getting any better."

"Do you know why?" his mom asked.

"Nobody to spar with except you and that's here," he said. "Fighting in the real world is different. I know all your low-level tricks and if you go all out, I can't even touch you. Sparring against only one person not at my level doesn't really do it for me."

"What about at school?" she asked.

"I'm better than anyone in my class except the Uchiha and I only get put against him about once a month. The teacher and his aide both ignore me. I'm not really learning any taijutsu at school."

"Hmmm," she said. "It is your birthday. Hold a ram seal for me and put as much chakra into it as you can."

He did so and could see the chakra glowing from his skin.

"Low-jounin-level chakra reserves," his mom said. "Looks like I can teach this to you safely." She showed him a hand seal that had the middle and index fingers crossed. "This is the clone hand seal. It's used for this technique and a couple of derived techniques."

"A clone technique? Is this going to be as awful as the other one to do?" he grumbled.

She smirked at him. "Just wait and see."

She had him practice making the seal for half an hour.

"You'll need to practice the hand seal in the real world for a bit to make sure you can do it consistently," she said.

She stood across from him. "Let me demonstrate it to you, then I'll tell you how to do it. This is the Shadow Clone Technique." She made the hand seal and then a second redhead formed beside her. "It makes solid, independent clones. They're somewhat fragile. A good hit will disperse them, but they're pretty useful. They know everything you do and can perform techniques. You also get all their memories when they disperse, so you can use them for scouting and studying. I would just be careful in that if you disperse too many at once, you can get a headache or worse."

"That does sound useful, but how will they help me with taijutsu if they're fragile?" he asked.

"You can use them in low impact spars. Seeing how you fight from a different angle can be pretty useful. If you make a few of them, you can have them fight each other."

"I see," he said. "It'll be better than what I have right now, at least."

She smirked. "This is actually my favorite technique after my Adamantine Sealing Chains. Uzumaki can typically get a lot more use out of this since we have more chakra. Ours are typically a little sturdier too, since we have denser chakra.

"Making them is pretty simple, actually. Flow chakra through the hand seal and then pinch off the chakra and pull it apart."

He did so, but nothing happned. After practicing for another half an hour with some tips from his mom, he did it.

"You need to be careful with this, Naruto-chan. If you don't have enough chakra to make a clone, it will send you into chakra exhaustion."

"Can I make more than one at once?" he asked.

"Yes, you just pinch the chakra off into thirds or fourths. It works the best if you make them equal. There's a shortcut for making lots at once, but I'm not going to teach you that yet, since it's actually pretty dangerous. You can die if you try and make too many. I don't want you to make more than five Shadow Clones at once for now, okay?"

"Okay, Mom," he said.

An idea struck him. "If they remember what I do and can use chakra, can they be used to learn ninjutsu?"

She smiled. "They can, sort of. You only learn from them when they dispel, so if you have a bunch of them doing things exactly the same, you won't learn much because they'll make the same mistakes. If you have them working on different parts of a technique though, it could help. Where they really shine for training is in chakra control exercises. If you have them dispel regularly, the ones still training learn what the dispelled one did. Unless you're training with identical leaves and trees, which is impossible, the differences between what your different clones do add up. Other than that, it's like training in your mindscape. They don't help with physical things other than helping build reflexes and patterns, but they do help with chakra training."

"Awesome!" he said. Practicing taijutsu in his mindscape helped him to learn the moves, but he had to also put in real-world practice so that his muscles learned the moves as well as his mind. That meant that Shadow Clones would be useful with taijutsu, even if they were not a complete solution.

"You'll have to be careful though, Son," she said. "I don't want anyone to know you can do this, so don't do it where you can be seen."

* * *

He used his new technique in a small clearing with a creek running through it. The chakra control exercise he was currently doing was water walking. The creek was deep enough he could do it, but not too deep that he would get his clothes wet if he wore shorts unless he was stupid. Even with just the five clones his mom restricted him to, he could notice a change in his chakra control progress. His taijutsu was also improving again. It was frustrating to have to keep replacing a clone if he sparred too hard, but it was worth it.

* * *

Near the end of the year, he hit another plateau in his taijutsu skills. In all honesty, it did not feel like anything had changed. He knew he was better, but he still could not beat the Uchiha. He had lost to him earlier in the day, in fact. He was still much better than the other students, but that had been true before his mom had taught him Shadow Clones.

That night, he again asked his mom to teach him her taijutsu.

"I told you it wouldn't help you much," she said. "What you really need is for a male taijutsu expert to find you a suitable style. I don't want you to pick up bad habits now that you'll have to unlearn."

In frustration he used the Disguise Technique to change himself into a girl.

"What about now?" he asked cheekily.

His mom arched an eyebrow at him. "You know that for most people the Disguise is just an illusion. They aren't physically different and it wouldn't help with their taijutsu."

"Most people?" he asked.

"My Disguise Technique was always more physical," she said. "If the cause for that is what I suspect, it would be true for you too." She rubbed his cheek and then nodded. "Come inside the house."

She led him to her bedroom and they stood in front of the room's full length mirror. He looked at himself. He was a little more slender, especially in the chest area. His hair was red—the same color as his mom's—and his whisker birthmarks were missing. "Take off your clothes. Let's see how real this is."

He felt embarrassed about disrobing in front of his mom, but did it anyway. His eyes were drawn to his private area which was completely different.

"How did you know to make it like that?" his mother asked. "Have you been peeping?"

He frantically shook his head. "No, this just felt natural," he explained. "It sort of 'clicked' into place."

"Okay," she said, "I believe you. You can get dressed."

While he got dressed his mother asked, "Why did you make your hair red?"

"For you, Mom," he said. "You've been my only real friend. I thought that if you had a daughter, you would like it if she had hair like yours."

His mom hugged him. "Ah, Sweetie, I wouldn't give you up for any daughter."

Naruto struggled to get loose. "Let me finish getting dressed, Mom!"

She giggled and let him go. "It's true that Minato and I wanted more than one kid, but I'm happy with just you."

"Thanks, Mom."

"Why did you get rid of your whisker birthmarks?" his mom asked.

Naruto scowled. "I hate them. They mark me as different. I suspect they're part of the reason everyone hates me."

His mother sighed. "I was going to wait for another two years to tell you, but I think you're ready and it will explain part of why you can do this and no one other than the two of us can."

He brightened.

"It starts when Konoha was young. There were two candidates for Hokage: Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara. Almost the entire village voted for Hashirama, including most of Madara's clan. Madara felt betrayed and left. He eventually returned and attacked the village with the Kyuubi no Youko doing his bidding."

"The Kyuubi," Naruto whispered. He had heard tales of what the great demon had done to the village ten years ago.

"Hashirama defeated Madara and the Kyuubi with the help of his wife Uzumaki Mito, who was my great-great-aunt. Aunt Mito sealed the Kyuubi inside herself in order to defeat it. When she neared the end of her life, Aunt Mito sent to Uzushio to get someone to replace her as the jailer of the Kyuubi. I was selected because of my special chakra which suppresses other people's chakra. I came to Konoha and eventually Aunt Mito transferred the Kyuubi into me using a special seal."

Naruto listened in awe.

"When I was older, I married your father and became pregnant with you. We knew that giving birth weakens the seal on a demon container and that there was a danger of it getting loose. Minato made preparations and stood by to make sure it didn't get out. Unfortunately, a man attacked us and, by holding you hostage, drew Minato away and then came back and freed the Kyuubi and set it against Konoha."

Naruto clenched his fists. It was because of that man that he had grown up without parents.

"I was dying due to the Kyuubi being extracted from me and, because of that, the only candidate to seal the Kyuubi into was you. Only an Uzumaki is strong enough to hold the Kyuubi and most of our family died not long after I came to Konoha. You and I were certainly the only ones in Konoha at the time." She shed a few tears. "The seal that Minato used cost him his life. He used it in order to make sure that you would be safe from the Kyuubi. I had heard about the way that jinchuuriki, that's what they call people like us, were treated in places where their identity was known, so I insisted that I be sealed into you as well. We wanted to include Minato too, but there was no time for us to figure out a way to put us both in the seal."

Naruto felt his anger rise.

"Do you hate us, Naruto?" his mom asked quietly.

His anger left him. "Huh? No way, mom! I'm angry at the jerk who set the Kyuubi free and the idiots who can't tell the difference between a seal and what's sealed inside it!"

He looked her in the face. "Did they treat you badly too?"

She laughed ruefully. "No, hardly anybody knew. It was a secret."

"Why did they tell everyone about me then?" he asked.

"I suspect that they had to say something to the shinobi, at least, of what happened to the Kyuubi. After that, I suppose it was a leak among the shinobi."

"I bet it was my whisker marks that gave me away," he said sullenly.

"Ironically," his mom said, "you were born with those marks. They're because I was the Kyuubi's container, not you. You would have had them even if it hadn't been broken free."

He snorted.

"I suspect the reason you can make true transformations is because of the Kyuubi. Kitsune in legends are supposed to be shapeshifters. As for why you can change into a girl without knowing anything about them, maybe the Kyuubi is female or maybe it's because its previous two containers were women."

"So, will you teach me your taijutsu now?" he asked.

"I don't think this is a healthy idea, Naruto-chan." She sighed. "I guess if you see how your body moves correctly as a girl, you might be able to adapt it to your own body. Very well. Tomorrow, make sure your Disguise transformation is real in the real world. If it is, and I suspect it will be, I'll start teaching you my taijutsu forms."

"Thanks, Mom!" he exclaimed.

* * *

The transformation worked in the real world, so the next night his mom started him on katas for the Whirling Tides taijutsu style. His mom also started him on flexibility exercises in order to get the most out of it. Out of curiosity, he tried the kata without the Disguise transformation on. It was a little uncomfortable, but manageable.

When he mentioned it to his mom, she said, "I never said a man couldn't use this style, it's just that it works best for women. As you get older, this will be easier transformed than not. I still say that you should get someone else to teach you a better style for you, but I've decided not to fight you on this anymore. Ultimately, this can be good for infiltration missions, if nothing else."

After they were done and they were relaxing, he asked her, "Where did my name come from, Mom?"

"Your dad's sensei wrote a book called _The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi_. The main character's name was Naruto. Minato and I loved that book. I think we have a copy in the library here. Don't go looking for anything else by Jiraiya though. After his first book didn't sell well, he switched to writing smut."

"Cool," he said. "I'll give it a read."

"I think the name is a reference to one of his students named Nagato, who was also an Uzumaki, but I'm not sure how closely related we are to him. Unfortunately, Jiraiya said he was dead."

"So I'm probably the only Naruto? Cool."

"The kids in class were teasing me about being named after a ramen topping," he said.

She giggled. "Mikoto totally said that too when I told her. I like ramen as much as you do."

"Ramen's the best."

"No, your name uses the kanji for the storm, not the ramen topping."

"Would you have used that name for me if I were born a girl?" he asked.

"Already looking for an alias?" she teased.

"Maybe," he said with an embarrassed shrug.

"We were thinking about it, but I was leaning toward Tsunami."

"Huh. Namikaze Tsunami is kind of symmetrical."

His mom laughed. "So it is. I wouldn't use that alias at least until your Jounin level. Iwa targeted Minato's cousins and they weren't even shinobi. Most of them ended up changing their names and moving far away."

* * *

Naruto took to training his taijutsu at least half the time in his "Tsunami" Disguise. He had tried out wearing an orange outfit, since it was his favorite color. His mom told him it clashed horribly with Tsunami's red hair. After pouting for a few minutes, he settled on a green jacket that flared at the hips and dark blue pants.

His mom had made him promise not to use the Whirling Tides style at the Academy. Even though it defeated his original reason for learning it—beating Sasuke in a spar, more than anything, he enjoyed doing something that he could share with his mom.

Even though he still lived at the orphanage, nowadays he mainly only slept there. He often ate dinner at his clearing. He took to shopping for dinner—mostly instant ramen cups—while in his girl Disguise. He was treated better, as Tsunami, which gave him mixed feelings.


	5. Chapter 4: Caught!

About a month from the end of the school year, he was practicing in his clearing as Tsunami, when he suddenly felt something was wrong before he blacked out.

When he awoke he found himself strapped to a chair. He could not feel his chakra! A dour-looking scar-faced man with a Leaf Badge on a bandana that covered the top of his head was starting at him.

"Who are you?" Scar Face asked.

"Uzumaki Tsunami," he said.

"I'll admit that you look like an Uzumaki, but we don't have any true Uzumaki in our village anymore," Scar Face said. "What are you doing here? We don't take kindly to unknown persons practicing ninja skills in hidden areas of our village."

"I can explain to the Hokage," Naruto said.

"Why should Hokage-sama come talk to you? Anything you could say to him, you can say to me."

He thought for a minute. He did not know anything about Scar Face. He could not even be sure he was still in Konoha. He did not have any code words set up with the Old Man. He decided to take a chance on a reference to his heritage.

"Tell him it's about Kushina and her husband."

"Uzumaki Kushina never married," Scar Face said.

"It was a secret marriage," Naruto said.

"Very well," Scar Face said, "but if you're wasting my time, it will go worse for you."

* * *

Several hours later the Hokage entered the room, frowning. He stared at Naruto for a few moments. Scar Face stood behind him.

"Hokage-sama, I suggest that you send anyone you don't want to know about Kushina's husband out of the room," Naruto said. It felt weird to call the Old Man by his title, but he didn't think his surrogate grandfather would appreciate Naruto's brand of informality coming from an unknown prisoner.

"Everyone leave," the Hokage commanded. Scar Face left and the Old Man shut the door. He placed a privacy seal and activated it. Naruto could not draw one yet, but he recognized it.

"How do you know what less than ten living people know?" the Hokage demanded.

"I found out about my parents," Naruto said.

"Stop the lies," the Hokage snarled. "Kushina never had a daughter." Naruto was unnerved to see this side of the Hokage. He decided to come clean. "How about you tell me who you think her husband was?"

"Her husband's name was Minato and I'm not their daughter," he said. "Tsunami is an alias. I'm really Naruto."

"They did a full examination of you while you were unconscious, girl, and a Disguise won't work without access to your chakra or while unconscious. Try again."

"I have an unusual Disguise Technique, because of my tenant," Naruto said. "It allows me to do actual transformation with no chakra maintenance. My mom could do the same thing."

"Kushina never said anything about that," the Hokage said.

"She told me she rarely saw the need to use it," Naruto said.

"How do you explain talking to a woman who died the day you claim you were born?" the Hokage asked.

"I'll explain it to you after I prove who I am and we go someplace more comfortable, Hokage-sama," Naruto said.

"Naruto never calls me Hokage-sama," he said.

"I don't feel comfortable calling you Jiichan when I'm chained to the chair," Naruto said.

"How do you propose to prove yourself," the Hokage asked.

"Give me access to my chakra and I'll show you my seal," Naruto said.

The Hokage thought for a couple of minutes. "I'm embarrassed to say that I don't know anything about Naruto that couldn't be found out by two days' worth of observation. I'll remove the chakra suppression seal, but if you try anything you'll definitely wish you hadn't."

He nodded. "I understand. You'll also need to lift my shirt. This would be easiest if I could make a ram seal, but I'll understand if you don't want to free my hands."

The Hokage removed a seal tag from his back and then lifted his shirt with one hand. "Go ahead and flare your chakra gently."

Naruto summoned a small amount of chakra. He could not see his stomach, but he saw the Hokage's eyes bug out briefly.

"Can you release the Disguise?" the Hokage asked.

"I can," Naruto answered, "but I need to make hand seals to reapply it. I'd rather not have anyone know that Tsunami and I are the same person."

"That type of Disguise is too useful to let out to anyone at this point," the Hokage admitted. "I wish Kushina had told me she could do it."

"Probably didn't want to be stuck on nothing but infiltration missions," Naruto said.

The Hokage thought for a moment. "That's probably it. She didn't have the personality for them." He glanced at Naruto. "I dare say that you don't either."

"No way, Jiichan," he said. "I have a little bit more patience than I let on, but not that much."

"I'll get the key to your bonds and then come back," the Hokage said. The Hokage replaced the chakra suppression tag and then left

About ten minutes later, the Hokage returned. Naruto wondered if most of the time was spent arguing with Scar Face. The Hokage again removed the chakra suppression tag.

"Turn into Naruto," the Hokage said. "If you can do it and then keep it with your chakra suppressed, I'll let you go."

"Okay," Naruto said. He released the Disguise.

"Amazing," the Hokage said. He placed the chakra suppression tag on Naruto and left it there for a minute before removing it. "One last thing: tell me how you know what you know."

Naruto sighed. "My mom talked my dad into sealing her into me since she was dying. She appeared in my mindscape when I was five. I've been talking to her every night since."

"How do you know it's not the Kyuubi trying to trick you?" the Hokage asked.

"I wouldn't think the Kyuubi is capable of faking motherly love without trying to poison me against Konoha for five years unless it's _really_ misunderstood," Naruto said. "Mom did give me something to say to you to prove it was her if you ever found out."

"Go on," he said.

"She said to mention the six bowls of Ichiraku ramen she extorted from you for not telling Biwako about the orange-covered books hidden in your desk."

He chuckled, embarrassed. "Okay, I'm pretty sure it's her, although we can't rule out the Kyuubi knowing about that since it was imprisoned in your mother."

He unchained Naruto. "Okay, change back to your girl Disguise," the Hokage said.

Naruto formed the Ram seal and changed into his Tsunami Disguise.

"You can do Disguise with only one hand seal?" he asked. "Your version does use the standard hand seals, right?"

Naruto nodded. "I practiced a bunch. I heard that the Second Hokage could do it, and thought it would be cool."

The Hokage nodded. "Lots of jounin and even chuunin do that with D and E-rank techniques they use frequently. In fact, it's strongly encouraged for a jounin to be able to do a Replacement Technique without using any hand seals at all. What was extraordinary about the Second was that he did it with B and A-rank techniques." The Hokage paused. "Your reports from the Academy say that you're very poor in everything. Why is that?"

Naruto snorted. "The teacher hates me. He marks me lower in everything and then docks my overall score for 'misbehaving' even when I don't."

The Old Man looked stricken. "Naruto! Why didn't you tell me? I would have fired the idiot and gotten someone better!"

Naruto rolled his eyes. "You and the Ichirakus are the only ones that don't hate me. I doubt switching teachers would help. Plus, it gave me an excuse to prank him."

"That's not true, Naruto," the Hokage said. "It's mostly the ignorant civilians that hate you—the shinobi know better."

Naruto shrugged. "I've never met anyone else who, at the least, didn't ignore me like I wasn't worth their time. And my teacher is a shinobi."

"I'll make sure you're in a good class next year," the Hokage said, "and fire the moron immediately. Come to my office and let me know what your mother has been teaching you."

* * *

Naruto explained his skills to the Hokage. Other than the Shadow Clone Technique and his basic sealing skills, he did not really know more than the average student.

The Hokage kept his word and fired his teacher. They had substitutes for the last few months of classes. The subs were better than the old teacher, but most of them still mistreated him. He thought it was mostly because of the notes the old teacher wrote on how poor his skills were and his "behavior problems" rather than his "furry problem." He simply pranked them, which probably did not help his reputation, but he was past caring.

He spent a lot of time thinking about how to solve the problem. He knew that giving up pranking would help, but he just could not let a slight to him go unpunished. What he needed was to start over.

* * *

"You want to what!?" the Hokage exclaimed.

"You heard me, Jiichan," Naruto said. "I want to attend the Academy as Tsunami as well as Naruto."

"Why would you want to do that?" the Old Man asked.

"I want to start over," he said. "These last few weeks have been a bit better, but my reputation is weighing me down. Everyone thinks I'm the Dead Last, while actually I'm the second best in my class. Even if I get a teacher that doesn't see me as the Fox, they'll still see me as the idiot. One of the last guys to teach my class accused me of cheating because my scores were 'too good' compared to my historical scores."

"I don't think this is the right answer, Naruto," the Old Man said. "There's still two years left. It will get better."

"Alright, Jiichan," Naruto said, "let's make it a wager. If at the end of the year Naruto has a standing within five places of Tsunami, Tsunami will disappear. If not, I get to keep her."

"Naruto. . ."

"I'm tired of it, Jiichan," Naruto said with a sigh. "All I really want is to be accepted. I can only take so much of the harsh looks and the turned backs. The times I went out as Tsunami to go shopping were quite refreshing."

"Naruto, I sympathize, I really do, but part of your cover is the fact that nobody realizes you're a true Uzumaki. If a redheaded sister shows up, they'll make the connection to Kushina and if they start looking for which of Kushina's friends was blond. . ."

"Really, Jiichan?" he said. "My mom says I act just like her. If that doesn't clue people in, then having a redhead sister won't."

"Fine," the Hokage said with a sigh. "If you can convince your mother _and_ you can do seal-less and smoke-less Replacement and Disguise Techniques by a week before the next school year starts, I'll let you do it. I trust you not to lie about your mother's approval."

* * *

"Naruto," his mom said worriedly. "I don't think this idea of yours is healthy."

"Didn't you say that most high-level shinobi have quirks?" he countered.

"Yes, but most of them don't pick them up in the Academy."

"I just want a chance to not have the Fox hanging over me, like you did, Mom," he said.

"Fine," she said, "I'll agree to the same conditions as the Hokage. You need to be able to do seal-less and smoke-less Replacements with a Shadow Clone and a smoke-less and seal-less Disguises by the deadline and if Naruto is within five spots of Tsunami or is higher, the experiment ends."

"Can I raise my clone quota to 10?" he begged.

"Fine," she said with a sigh. "Let me show you how to do Replacement."

* * *

The end of the Academy year was coming up. He had planned to take the final test this year in order to try and graduate early, but decided to try his wager with the Old Man instead.

He had four weeks to get the technique requirements down. After he spent a few hours to get the Replacement down with its standard five hand seals, he started with Disguise, since he was almost there. He could already do it smoke-less with only one hand seal. Practicing in all his free time with his 10 clones, he managed to get it down seal-less and smoke-less in two days.

He started on perfecting the Replacement. Luckily, Replacement with a Shadow Clone was much easier than any other Replacement. Within a day he had it smokeless with five hand seals due to his good chakra control. Within less than two weeks he had it down to one hand seal and smoke-less. He spent almost a week and a half getting rid of the last hand seal. He had made it with two days to spare!

He rushed over to the Hokage's office and then waited "patiently" for him to be free. He was practically bouncing off the walls.

"Hey, Jiichan," he exclaimed as he entered the office.

The Hokage activated the privacy seal. "I take it from your demeanor that you have met my requirements?"

"Yep, Jiichan," he said excitedly. "With two whole days to spare!"

The Old Man sighed. "I'll make the arrangements. Let me tell you the rules. You have to switch off which is the real you and which is the Shadow Clone. You can't hide as Tsunami all the time. You need to switch every school day. The only exception is in taijutsu spars, the real you has to participate in each spar. This is why I made the requirement for seal-less and smoke-less Replacements."

"What if we have a spar at the same time or if we have to spar with each other?" Naruto asked.

"I'll make you a note saying you're allowed to watch each other spar, telling the teachers not to schedule them at the same time. For the other, we typically don't have the boys and girls spar."

"I've noticed that, Jiichan," Naruto said, "but isn't that kind of counterproductive? I mean enemy shinobi aren't going to accommodate that kind of arrangement."

The Old Man sighed. "Yes, it is. It's one of the accommodations towards the civilian children that have crept in. I haven't had time to fix it yet, so I've been leaving it to the jounin senseis to fix, for now."

"Can we get a place to stay other than the orphanage, Jiichan?" asked Naruto. "That's one of the things I would like to escape."

"Why?" the Hokage asked. "Do they treat you poorly?"

"They aren't physically or verbally abusive, if that's what you're asking," Naruto said. "They just continually ignore me unless it's a requirement to interact with me. If I'm going to be lonely, I'd rather actually _be_ by myself rather than in a group."

"What about food?" the Hokage asked.

"I rarely am there for food anymore," Naruto said. "I usually make my own arrangements for food."

The Hokage sighed. "Very well. I'll set up one of Jiraiya's apartments for the 'two' of you."

"My missing godfather, eh?" Naruto said.

"Don't judge Jiraiya too harshly, Naruto-kun," the Hokage stated. "I asked him to stay away until you became an official shinobi in order to not draw attention to the fact that you look an awful lot like your father."

Naruto frowned. "Okay, Jiichan. Thanks for humoring me in my experiment."


	6. Chapter 5: The Academy through New Eyes

Naruto went to the Academy as Tsunami the first day. Both of him were in a new class together. Sasuke was also in the class as were a few others from his old class. Sakura, the pink-haired girl, and Hinata, the pale-eyed girl, were both in his classt oo. The other kid that stood out was a boy with red marks on his cheeks who walked around with a puppy on his head.

The first day went better than school usually did. The teacher treated everyone the same, although Naruto, watching as Tsunami, could tell that he was wary of Naruto. The teacher's aide was very friendly—although when the Naruto clone was not looking, he sent hateful looks his way. Tsunami wrote left-handed, so that their handwriting would look different. Naruto was grateful that his mom had made him become good at writing with both.

Most of the kids treated Naruto like kids always had, the exceptions were the boy with the dog, Inuzuka Kiba, a lazy-looking boy with a pineapple haircut, Nara Shikamaru, and a large boy with swirls on his cheeks, Akimichi Chouji. There was another boy in the class who was also a loner, Aburame Shino. Shino did not really ignore him like kids usually did; he was just very polite and aloof to everyone.

He hung out with Shikamaru and Chouji sometimes, but they did not seem to want to do anything but look at clouds, so he found them pretty boring. At other times he hung out with Kiba, but Kiba was too bossy to be around all the time.

At this age, the boys and the girls had segregated themselves. Yamanaka Ino, a loud, blonde girl, pulled Naruto as Tsunami into her orbit. Ino was friends with Sakura. Both of them did not care for Naruto in his real form, but it seemed to be mostly because they found him loud and obnoxious. Naruto found that he liked the girls, but that he could only take so much of them. Ino and Sakura mainly wanted to talk about boys, and they both quickly settled on Sasuke as the most desirable of them.

When Ino and Sakura got too much for him as Tsunami, he sought out Hinata. Hinata was friendly, but very shy. She did ask him a few questions about his "brother," but spent a lot of that time red-faced and stuttering. When Ino and Sakura's fawning over Sasuke and Hinata's shyness got too much for him, he sought out his other self, who was usually tired of Shikamaru and Chouji's laziness and Kiba's bossiness by that time.

As far as schoolwork went, Naruto noticed a pattern. Tsunami quickly assumed a position near the top of the class. She floated between number four and six, switching positions with Ino and Hinata, but consistently behind Sasuke, Shino, and Sakura. Naruto, however, found himself at dead last, which was lower than he was in his old class. Part of that was due to the people who had been worse dropping out, but mostly it was due to sabotage and the fact that a lot of the standings depended on the written tests since there were more of them than the practical ones. His tests were different than Tsunami's and his shuriken and kunai frequently bounced off the target. When he complained to the teacher, the teacher said he would look into it, but nothing ever happened. He did pretty well in his taijutsu spars against most of the boys. Sasuke still always beat him. Kiba usually beat him and Chouji sometimes did. In fight against the teacher's aide, however, the aide seemed to fight him harder than he did anyone else. Afterwards he always seemed friendly with a "better luck next time," but Naruto knew better. He thought about talking to the Old Man about it, but decided to stick to their wager.

Occasionally, when it got too boring, he would start a fight with his clone over who would be Hokage. He would always win, of course, regardless of whether he was Tsunami or himself.

The big new skill they learned this year was Replacement, which Naruto had just learned with his mom's help. Naruto still could not do the normal Clone Technique. He asked the teacher about it, but there were always two students who appeared and started badgering him whenever Naruto tried to get help from him. Naruto suspected that the aide was paying them off somehow, based on how he looked whenever it happened.

He attended the kunoichi class as Tsunami, but in his opinion it was a waste of time. Most of it had to do with things like flower arranging that were only valuable for infiltration missions. Despite the aptitude that his special Disguise Technique would give him for those, he had no desire to specialize in them.

Naruto eased up on the classroom pranks, because he did not want to foul the wager with the Old Man. He did not stop completely, however, because he found it fun. He was still never caught, but he got the blame every time because of his reputation.

* * *

In his mindscape, his mom taught him chakra sensing using the Mind's Eye Technique in addition to teaching him Whirling Tides taijutsu and seals. It took him two months of meditation to get to the point where he could sense anything. Once he figured it out though, he steadily got better at it.

"Why do I feel different when I'm Tsunami," one of his clones asked while he was sparring with his mom. The clone was practicing the Mind's Eye, while several other were doing water walking on the stream in the meadow.

"It's because you turn into a real girl and have more yin chakra," his mom replied, stopping the sparring.

"My chakra signature is different?" Naruto asked. He had noticed something odd about it, but had not yet put it to words.

"Kind of," his mother replied. "It's the same whether your Naruto or Tsunami, except that Tsunami has more yin chakra. This makes for an interesting scenario where you look different to human sensors, but not to seals that look at chakra—unless the seal specifically looks at the yin-yang balance."

She pulled out her ink and sealing paper kit and drew two seals. "This first seal is a standard security seal linked to a storage seal. Once activated by someone's chakra it can only be unlocked by that same person. Pick up a rock and put it in the seal."

Naruto as Tsunami did so.

"Now, I want a Naruto clone to unlock it," she said.

The clone that had started the conversation did so. The rock came out.

"This other seal is the same, but modified to sense yin-yang balance," she said. "Give it another try.

Naruto sealed the same rock into the seal, but the clone could not remove it.

"Why don't all security seals check for yin-yang balance?" he asked.

"Because it's not stable," she said. "Most people's yin-yang balance changes over time. Puberty effects it. So does menopause for women. But even outside of those, everybody's changes slightly over time. There are other markers in a chakra signature that remain stable and are much better for security seals. The changes are usually gradual and small, so the changes don't register to a human sensor, even though yin and yang stand out brightly to a human sensor."

"Is that why Jiichan didn't know it was me when they discovered me as Tsunami?" he asked.

She nodded. "They certainly would have had a sensor look at you."

"I still have more yang chakra than yin chakra when I'm Tsunami," the clone said.

"That's because of several reasons, primarily. One is that you're an Uzumaki. We naturally have more yang chakra than normal people. The other is that your father split the Kyuubi in half when he sealed it into you. He put the yang half in you and sealed the yin half in himself and took it with him into the Shinigami's belly. The Kyuubi's yang chakra would cause you're body to make more. The last is that studying is what naturally increases yin chakra and you would rather work out. I wouldn't worry about it though. While women tend to have more yin chakra than men and vice versa with men and yang, there are many exceptions both ways."

"What does this mean for me as Tsunami?" Naruto asked.

"You might be a little better at genjutsu and have a little less stamina," his mom said.

"You mean I could finally do the Clone Technique?" he asked.

She laughed. "Probably not. I never could and I am more balanced toward yin chakra than you as Tsunami. I'm actually pretty even between yin and yang and you still have more yang even when you're Tsunami."

"Will having less stamina as Tsunami hurt me?" he asked.

"Probably not. Not only are you balanced toward yang, you have tons of chakra. You still have a massive amount of stamina as Tsunami."

* * *

Towards the end of the year, the Academy teacher, Iruka, seemed to soften toward Naruto. He decided to give him a chance. Iruka invited him out to dinner at Ichirakus a few times, which Naruto enjoyed.

Iruka tried to be brotherly or fatherly, but he still failed the test his mother had made for him. Whenever he tried to talk to him in class about the Clone Technique, the aide's henchmen distracted him. Whenever he mentioned it outside of class, Iruka said it wouldn't be fair to give him extra help outside of class.

When Naruto tried to talk to him about the discrepancy in how he and Tsunami were treated, Iruka brushed him off.

"I looked into it, Naruto-kun," he said. "The tests are the same."

Naruto thought about pushing it, but decided to not to rock the boat and keep to his wager with the Old Man.

Iruka's focus on the outings seemed to be to try and make Naruto feel accepted enough to stop pranking. His teacher admitted that he had been a bit of a prankster when he was a kid because he had felt lonely. Naruto thought about letting Iruka catch him in his pranks in order to build more of a bond with him, but discarded the idea since his teacher was still failing the Clone test.

* * *

In the final normal year of the Academy, they learned about genjutsu and how to dispel them. Naruto struggled with this as much as he did with the Clone Technique. He was supposed to stop his chakra flow and then restart it. The problem was that he had so much chakra that it was difficult to stop. There was also a small current in his chakra that made stopping it even harder. He thought it must be related to the seal that kept the Fox prisoner.

It did not help that the teacher's aide always seemed to be the one that applied the genjutsu on him and made it harder than the one that Tsunami got. Tsunami managed to dispel the genjutsu about a third of the time, but Naruto never managed it.

* * *

In his mindscape, his mom taught him another method for dispelling genjutsu. By flaring his chakra, he could force the foreign chakra out of him. Unfortunately, since his mom did not know any genjutsu, he could not test the method out on a real one. She recommended that he not use this other method in class, because it was likely to scare the teachers based on the amount of chakra needed to do it.

The other thing that his mom taught him were her chakra chains. Unfortunately, he did not have her special chakra, so his chains, which she called Adamantine Attacking Chains, did not suppress chakra. They were still pretty cool though.

By this time, he had gotten pretty proficient in the Whirling Tides taijutsu as Tsunami. He started incorporating aspects of it into his taijutsu as Naruto too. His sealing skills had gotten into what his mom called the Intermediate range. He'd gotten good at making sealing scrolls and explosive notes.

* * *

The major thing that happened at the Academy early in the seventh year, that did not relate to schoolwork, was the falling out between Sakura and Ino. The two girls blew up at each other over who was "worthy" of "Sasuke-kun." Unlike other arguments between the two, this one did not blow over. This strained the friendship he had with the two as Tsunami but, as one of two girls in the class that did not fawn over the Uchiha, he became a sort of neutral party since neither of them liked Hinata. They thought Hinata was stuck up when she was just incredibly shy. The whole thing rather disgusted him, but he valued his friends.

* * *

As Tsunami, he visited a shinobi equipment store that his mom had recommended to see if it would buy some basic seals from him. When he told the proprietor, Higurashi-san, his alias, the man asked if he were Kushina's daughter. He responded that the Hokage had asked him not to talk about his parents. Higurashi-san then asked him if he were related to Naruto.

"Yes, he's my brother," he said. "Is that a problem?"

"No, no. Not if he's her son," the proprietor said with a wink.

"Good, because he made half of these," he said.

This gave him a nice source of income and a fallback career.

* * *

A couple of months after his twelfth birthday, he found an unpleasant surprise when he changed into Tsunami in the morning. He quickly changed back and meditated until he found himself in his mindscape.

"Mom!" he yelled, running into the house.

"What is it, Naruto-chan?" she said. "Shouldn't you be going to school?"

"I'm bleeding from my private parts!" he yelled.

"What?" she said, surprised. "Right now?"

"No, as Tsunami!" he responded.

She relaxed. "Ah, that's normal for a girl, although I'm surprised you're going through it."

"It's normal?" he asked incredulously.

"Haven't you had health class as Tsunami?" she asked.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I think that was the year before I started attending as Tsunami."

She sighed and explained to him the monthly cycle. She made him turn back to Tsunami and showed him how to use feminine hygiene products.

His mom snickered. "You know this means it's likely you can get pregnant, don't you?"

He blanched.

"I will tell you something that has saved a few high-level Konoha kunoichi when they ran out of certain supplies," she said.

"What?"

"Shadow Clones don't bleed during their periods," she said.

"They don't!" he said.

"They still feel bloated and crampy, but they don't bleed," she said.

Naruto thought about using Shadow Clones for Tsunami during the days that Tsunami had her period.

"I know what you're thinking," his mom said, "but remember your deal with the Third. No cheating!"

He pouted.

His mom hugged him. "It'll be okay. Half the world deals with it. You can too."

When he left his mindscape, he sent a Shadow Clone for feminine hygiene supplies. While he was waiting, he had an evil thought. There was no way he was going to the Academy today anyway. . .

* * *

"Jiichan!" he shouted as he ran into the Hokage's office as Tsunami. "I'm dying!"

"What!?" the Old Man exclaimed worriedly. "What happened?"

"I'm bleeding from down her for no reason!" he said, pointing at his crotch.

"Are you serious?" the Hokage asked, stunned. He sat in his chair for a few moments and then activated the privacy seal on the office.

"Well," the Hokage hemmed and hawed for a few long moments and then finally said, "You should talk to your mother about this."

Naruto couldn't hold it in any longer and busted up laughing.

"Naruto," said the Hokage sternly, "are you pranking me?"

"Kind of," said Naruto as he struggled to control himself. "I really am having my period and I really had no clue what was going on when I first changed to Tsunami this morning, but I already talked to my mom and she explained it to me."

The Old Man shook his head. "I can't believe your Disguise is that real. I assume you know what this implies, right?"

Naruto nodded his head soberly. "Yeah, Mom already warned me that it was possible I could get pregnant."

The Old Man got an evil glint in his eye. "You remember our deal, right? No passing your period off to Shadow Clones when it's the real you's turn."

Naruto sighed. "I figured. I am going to play hooky today though. I feel like I have a mild case of the flu, even disregarding the bleeding."

"I'll let it go this time," the Hokage said, "but only for today. Okay?"

Naruto nodded.

* * *

By the end of Tsunami's period, Naruto stopped thinking of himself as male when he changed into her. The period was disgusting and unpleasant, but it was a sort of rite of passage. Naruto felt like he was not pretending to be a girl anymore. His outlook did not really change—Tsunami was a huge tomboy and she did not like the girly things that Sakura and Ino occasionally tried to talk her into doing.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Higarushi is probably the most common fan fiction family name for Tenten (either naturally or adopted), although she is never given one in canon. I'm using it here for the proprietor of the shinobi supply store as a tribute to that.


	7. Chapter 6: The Results of the Wager

The day of the Genin Exam was a Naruto day. The teacher's aide was up to his old tricks. The questions on the written exam were too difficult. Most of the kunai and shuriken bounced. Naruto was eliminated quickly in his spar against the aide. He could not dispel the genjutsu, which he guessed was B-rank rather than the E-Rank everyone else got. He did do well in the physical condition portion of the test, but doubted that would be enough.

He was waiting for his ninjutsu test when he saw that the clone that had spent most of the day as Tsunami had her new Leaf Badge, so he knew he would be able to become a shinobi even if he as Naruto failed. He had "happened" to draw the last spot, but he thought that was the aide's doing in order to prolong the agony.

He successfully did a Replacement and Disguise, but his Clones looked half dead.

"I'm sorry, but you fail, Naruto-kun," Iruka said sadly.

"Ah, come on, Iruka-kun," the aide said. "He did manage to make them."

"These wouldn't fool anyone, Mizuki-kun," Iruka said. "I'm sorry, Naruto-kun, but you'll have to try again next year."

"What?" he said, "I know my sister can't do Clones either and you passed her!"

"Naruto-kun, Tsunami-kun passed every other test except the genjutsu," Iruka explained. "You failed the written, the taijutsu, the genjutsu, and the throwing test as well. In order to pass you have to pass four of the six subjects or get an exceptional grade in either taijutsu or ninjutsu. You just aren't ready yet. I'm sure you'll get it next year."

Naruto's temper finally gave out. "Hypocrite," he hissed. "I know for a fact that my skills are near matches for my sister's!"

"The tests say they aren't," Iruka insisted.

"You trust the stupid tests?" Naruto sneered as he glared at the aide. "My taijutsu is better than any other boy's in the class except for Kiba and the Uchiha and you know it. How could I fail a fair test?"

Iruka just stared at him open-mouthed.

"I told you there was something wrong with my written tests and the throwing weapons I was using last year, but you never did anything."

"I checked the tests, Naruto. They were the same as everyone else's," Iruka said.

"Did you check for genjutsu residues?" Naruto asked.

"Naruto, there wasn't a point. Everyone in the Academy is a professional," he insisted.

"You do realize that your predecessor was fired for purposefully sabotaging my education, don't you?" Naruto said. He glared at the aide whose face was too blank.

"What!?" Iruka shouted.

"You didn't know?" Naruto asked incredulously. "Maybe the corruption runs deeper than I thought," he muttered.

He started to turn away and then looked at Iruka. "I'll have you know, _sensei_ , that you failed my test too."

"Huh?" Iruka said.

"Out of all the students in your class, only my sister and I couldn't do the Clone Technique, but you never tried to find out why."

Naruto started walking toward the door. "I hope you learn from your mistake and become a better teacher, Iruka-san."

"I promise, next year, we'll figure out the Clone. . ."

"I won't be coming back, Iruka-san," Naruto said.

"But your dream. . ." Iruka said.

"I've decided that it isn't worth all the backstabbing." He glared at the aide. "Maybe my sister will fulfill my dream."

* * *

"Hi, Jiichan," Naruto said as he walked into the Hokage's office.

"Hello, Naruto-kun," the Old Man responded.

"I've come to report on our wager," Naruto said seriously.

The Hokage activated the privacy seals and sighed. "I don't have a good feeling about this."

"I failed every test except physical condition and maybe ninjutsu, depending on how they scored it," he reported.

"And Tsunami?" the Old Man asked.

"Passed everything except genjutsu dispelling and the Clone Technique."

The Hokage sighed. "I thought for sure that Iruka-kun would treat you fairly."

"He did," said Naruto. "He was just too trusting of his rat-fink aide, Mizuki. Mizuki used a genjutsu on my written tests and another one to hide that he was giving me dull throwing weapons. The genjutsus he cast on me to dispel were B-rank rather than E-rank, from what I can tell. Not that it would've mattered, I can't dispel the E-rank ones the standard way normally."

"Did you talk to Iruka or the Headmaster about it?" the Old Man asked.

Naruto nodded. "I told Iruka there was something wrong with the weapons and that I was getting much harder written tests than Tsunami. He did a shallow investigation and then wrote it off as sour grapes."

The Hokage put the flat of his palm against his forehead. "I thought I had the Academy straightened out." He turned to Naruto. "You should have told me, even if it messed up your game with Tsunami."

Naruto chuckled ruefully. "That reminds me, I kind of blew up at Iruka when he told me I failed. He said that he didn't know that my old teacher was fired for sabotaging me."

The Old Man groaned. "The Headmaster must have been trying to sweep it under the rug to save face."

"Oh, and Mizuki knows that I know he was sabotaging me," Naruto added. "He also had two students who helped out distracting Iruka."

"Alright, I'll have someone deal with him," the Hokage said. "Who were the accomplices?"

"Sato and Inue."

The Hokage leaned forward over his desk. "Are you sure you want to go through with our wager, Naruto-kun? I can give you a retest or even just say that I did on the basis of Tsunami passing."

Naruto nodded slowly. "I want to try living without all the hate, Jiichan. Tsunami isn't treated perfectly, because she's my 'sister,' but she's treated a lot better than I am as me. Even since she's been around I've been treated a little better. I think I appear more human because I have a sister. Everyone my age knows me as the 'Dead Last' while Tsunami is acknowledged as a serious shinobi. I want to escape my reputation too. I'm going to do it—at least for a while."

"What will you do as Naruto?" the Hokage asked. "I assume you're not going back to the Academy."

"Mom pointed me to a shinobi supply store. I showed the proprietor, Old Man Higurashi, some seals I made and he was interested in buying them. I'm getting close to what Mom calls Advanced Fuuinjutsu. I should be able to supplement the mission pay I get as Tsunami decently doing that. I'll probably see if there are any others that are interested."

"I'll get you an interview with our ANBU quartermaster as well," the Old Man said.

"Thanks, Jiichan!"

The old man had a nasty smirk on his face. "You know Naruto-kun, only official shinobi can engage in shinobi activities such as fuuinjutsu. Academy students are just about the only ones who are exempt."

Naruto frowned. "Jiichan, are you seriously going to take this away from me?"

The Old Man coughed. "If I could offer a potential solution?"

Naruto nodded.

"I make you a genin, but put you on the reserve list instead of assigning you to a team. That way you officially have basic shinobi privileges so you can make your seals under your real name, but it doesn't interfere with your experiment. It also provides you with an out that doesn't blow your secret if you decide to end your experiment."

Naruto sighed. "Okay, Jiichan. That sounds okay. Anything else?"

The Hokage nodded. "I'll be telling your jounin sensei the truth about you and Tsunami. They need to know in case something happens. Also, give your team a real overview of your abilities, but ask them not to spread it around. I'd like to keep the fact that you're Kushina's child obscure to the general population for as long as we can."

Naruto grimaced. "I don't like it, but I understand, Jiichan."

* * *

That night Naruto told his mom the results of the genin exam.

"Oh, Naruto-chan," she said. "I'm so sorry."

He shrugged it off. "I'm actually okay. At this point I'd rather just skip the drama as much as possible. Jiichan put the real me in the reserves so that I could make seals and sell them to shinobi shops. If I decide to end the experiment, I can pick up where I left off without too many problems."

"Well," she said, "I'm glad the Hokage had the foresight to think of that, because I'm sure it wasn't your idea."

"Hey!" he protested.

His mom laughed. "You get your lack of strategic planning from me. That's why I was never too upset when your father became Hokage instead of me. He was much better suited for it." She grinned. "But I still wore the pants in the family, Hokage or not!"

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Hey, since I'm a genin now, can you teach me the shortcut to creating lots of Shadow Clones?"

"That's hardly a genin-level technique, Naruto-chan," she said.

He transformed into a six-year-old version of Tsunami. "Pwease, momma?" She gave her mother her best puppy-dog eyes.

Her mom giggled. "Stop that, brat." She lightly swatted the back of Naruto's head. "Well, you certainly have the chakra for it. Okay, I'll teach it to you and lift your restrictions on the number of Shadow Clones you can make. Just be careful. Okay?"

Naruto aged into her 12-year-old girl form. "I will."

"Okay. This is how you do the Multi Shadow Clone Technique. You use the same clone hand seal, but instead of pinching off your chakra into portions, you set up a series of regular peaks and valleys like a sine wave in the chakra you focus through the hand seal." She drew an example on the ground with her chakra to make sure Naruto knew what she was talking about. Trigonometry was important for sealing. "The number of peaks is the number of Shadow Clones you make."

Naruto nodded and got to work.

* * *

The next Monday, Naruto as Tsunami went to the Academy for team assignments. She was excited to be a real shinobi. A part of her was disappointed that she was not doing it with her true face, but the rest of her was giddy with the idea of pulling the biggest prank ever as well as being treated as a normal kid. She wondered what her jounin sensei would think of her. If she were being honest with herself, she would have to admit that she was extremely nervous because of the Fox and her "real" Disguise.

She arrived a little early and sat down next to Hinata. It had been useless to try and sit next to Sakura or Ino for most of this year, since they inevitably fought over who got to sit next to the Uchiha. Sure enough, not long after she took her seat, she heard them arguing at the door. Sakura managed to get into the room first and smugly sat down next to Sasuke. Ino argued loudly with her until Iruka came in and used his Big Head Technique to quiet the class down.

As Iruka was about to start, Miyagi called out, "Where are Sato-san and Inue-san? They passed."

"Mizuki-san is involved in an investigation, which is why he's not here," Iruka explained. "Sato-san and Inue-san were called in as witnesses."

The class silently digested that. Most of them knew that Sato and Inue were Mizuki's stooges. Naruto was pleased to hear that Mizuki was getting his just desserts.

Iruka gave a speech on the responsibilities they now had as genin and how important their teammates were to their success. He wished them luck. Tsunami noticed that he would glance at her with a guilty look occasionally. He wondered if that was from the chewing out she gave him as Naruto or if the Hokage had also talked to him.

When it came time to announce the teams, she listened with half an ear until her daydreams were interrupted by the shrieks the fangirls when the Uchiha was assigned to an all-male team. She could swear she saw the corners of his mouth twitch up slightly for a second or two. Ino and Sakura both offered to take Shino or Kiba's place so that "Sasuke-kun" wouldn't have to be on a team with "losers." Iruka denied them.

Her team was announced next. "Team Eight: Haruno Sakura, Hyuuga Hinata, and Uzumaki Tsunami."

An all-kunoichi team? Interesting. She wondered if their sensei would be a kunoichi as well.

The team assignments ended with Ino complaining about getting stuck with a repeat of her dad's team. She loudly offered to trade with Sakura, because even the "Shy Girl" was better than the "Lazy Bum" and the "Bottomless Pit." Iruka stopped that by repeating that all team assignments were final.

Hinata and Naruto ate lunch together. Sakura was off trying to eat with Sasuke. Hinata looked like she was trying to ask Tsunami something, but she never managed to get the nerve to do it.

After lunch, everyone met in the classroom again. At precisely one o'clock, the door opened and a dark-haired woman stood in the door way. She was very pretty, but dressed oddly in an outfit that appeared to be made out of strips of bandages. Her piercing red eyes lingered on Naruto's before she said, "Team Eight, follow me please."

As they left, they saw several other adult shinobi approaching the classroom. Their presumed sensei led the girls out into the field behind the Academy where she gestured for them to sit.

"I'd like to start with introductions," she said, "I'll start. My name is Yuuhi Kuernai. I'm known as 'Konoha's Genjutsu Mistress.' I'm a fairly new jounin, but I'm excited to be your sensei. I like crafting new genjutsu. I dislike perverts. One of my goals is to show that kunoichi can be just as good as male shinobi. This year there was an unusual number of talented female graduates, so I asked Hokage-sama if I could make an all-kunoichi team and he graciously granted this team to me. I already know Hinata-chan and I'd like to get to know the rest of you. Sakura-san, please go next. Tell me your skills, likes, dislikes, and goals."

Sakura sat up straight and said, "My name is Haruno Sakura. Iruka-sensei said I have really good chakra control and I can do all the ninjutsu we were taught really well. I like. . ." She glanced toward the Academy and blushed. "I hate Ino-pig!" she shouted. "My goal is. . ." She glanced back toward the Academy and blushed harder.

Kurenai frowned deeply at her response. "You can go next, Hinata-chan."

Hinata shrank into herself a little, but said, "My name is Hyuuga Hinata. I know my clan's taijutsu style, the Gentle Fist and I have my clan's bloodline ability, the Byakugan. I like my sister and pressing flowers. I dislike bullies and when family doesn't get along. My goal is to turn my clan into a real family." She spoke quietly with a stutter. She kept pressing her fingers together in her standard nervous habit. By the end, she was almost whispering.

Kurenai looked at her with encouragement before turning to Tsunami. "You next, Tsunami-san."

Tsunami sat up straight and smiled brightly. "My name is Uzumaki Tsunami. I know one of my clan's specialized taijutsu styles, the Whirling Tide style; the Shadow Clone Technique; one of my clan's special ninjutsu, the Adamantine Attacking Chains; some sealing techniques up to about intermediate level; and I can sense chakra to about 200 meters. Hokage-sama has asked that we keep the fact that my brother and I are from the real Uzumaki clan a secret for as long as possible, so please don't pass my skills on to anyone. I like my brother, ramen, and finding out about my clan. I dislike the three minutes it takes to cook instant ramen, bigots, and bullies. My goal is to surpass all the previous Hokages!"

"You're from a clan!?" Sakura exclaimed. "Why doesn't anyone know?"

"My clan was mostly wiped out in the Second Shinobi War and my mom was kidnapped by Kumo because of some characteristics of our clan that they wanted when she was young, so the Hokage was keeping it on the down low."

Hinata shrank into herself even more at the mention of Kumo.

"What characteristics are those, Tsunami-chan?" Sakura asked.

"Long life and high chakra reserves," she replied.

"Thank you, all of you," Kurenai said. "I'm sorry to say that you aren't quite genin."

"We passed the test, Kurenai-sensei," Sakura protested.

"That was just a preliminary screening test, to see if you had the basic skills in order to be a shinobi. Tomorrow I will be testing you to make sure you have the basic qualities that Konoha looks for in its representatives. Please meet at Training Ground Eight tomorrow morning at 7 o'clock. Before you leave, I'd like to talk to each of you individually."

She made the clone hand seal and two Shadow Clones popped into existence. One of them said, "Tsunami-san, please follow me."

When they were some ways away, Kurenai asked. "Do you mind if we talk in your apartment?"

Naruto shook her head no and led her home. When they got there, she deactivated the security seals on her apartment and led her inside.

"Have a seat, Sensei," she said gesturing to a couch.

Kurenai looked at her for several moments before saying, "I have to admit, Naruto-san, that when Hokage-sama told me who Tsunami really was, I was disappointed."

Naruto scowled.

Kurenai continued, "Not because I had anything against you, personally, but because I thought Tsunami was a real girl and I thought we could have the first all-kunoichi team that Konoha has had in fifteen years."

Naruto sighed. "When I'm a girl, I'm a real girl. I'm actually experiencing the end of my period right now. I don't feel comfortable showing you, but if you want you can check out my trash for evidence."

"That won't be necessary," Kurenai said. "Hokage-sama said that the transformation was complete, but I'm not sure how that is possible without a horrendous chakra drain."

"I think being able to do a true transformation is an ability my tenant gives me. I've had some indication that my mom, who was its previous jailer, had the same ability. Based on legend, that is an ability that kitsune have."

Kurenai sighed. "Hokage-sama ordered me to accept you into my team as Tsunami. I'd much rather have you on it as Naruto, but I'll deal with it." She stared into Tsunami's eyes. "However, if I catch you using Tsunami's form to perv on me or the other girls, I'll place you in one of my worst genjutsu and kick you off the team so fast, your head will spin!"

"Hey, I'm not like that!" she protested. _Besides, Mom would kill me if she found out_ , she thought to herself. "I'm just trying to escape a horrible life that I didn't deserve!"

Kurenai's look softened. "I'm not unsympathetic to your situation. Hokage-sama told me some of what has happened to you, but I will not accept you using it to take advantage of the others, okay?"

She nodded.

"Okay. I'll see you tomorrow, then. Good luck."


	8. Chapter 7: The Ball Test

That evening just after dinner there was a knock on the door. Tsunami went and answered it. Iruka stood at the door looking embarrassed.

"Hi, Iruka-sensei," she said cheerfully. She did not really dislike the man, but she was irritated with him and figured that being cheerful would make him squirm.

"Hi, Tsunami-kun," he said. "Is your brother here? Can I speak to him privately?"

"Sure," she said. "I'll go get him from his room.

She went back into "Naruto's room" and created a Shadow Clone. She transformed into her birth form and sent his clone into "Tsunami's room" while he returned to the front room.

"Hello, Iruka-san," he said. "What can I do for you?"

"I came to apologize, Naruto-san," he started.

"Okay," Naruto agreed. "I accept."

"That's it?" Iruka protested.

"Yep," Naruto answered. "I know you didn't try to keep me down maliciously, Iruka-sensei." He noticed Iruka's eyes light up when he called him sensei. "I'm sorry for blowing up at you. As long as we both learn from the situation, it's all good."

"Will you be requesting a retest then?" Iruka asked. "Or are you going to be joining us at the Academy next school year?"

"Hokage-sama already retested me," Naruto said.

"Whose team are you joining?" the teacher asked.

"None," Naruto said. "I'm going straight to the reserves."

"What!?" Iruka exclaimed. "Why?"

"I'm tired of dealing with the prejudice, Iruka-sensei. My time in the Academy was a test to see if I could fit in and Konoha failed. The only reason I accepted a commission is because I enjoy fuuinjutsu and have found a buyer for the seals that Tsunami-chan and I make. You aren't allowed to do fuuinjutsu if you aren't a shinobi."

"But. . ." Iruka was starting to get upset.

"Don't worry about it, Iruka-sensei. I don't like to hold grudges. Maybe I'll try again in a few years—perhaps after I get a reputation as an awesome seal maker."

"You know fuuinjutsu!?" Iruka asked.

Naruto nodded. "Yep. I'm pretty decent, too. I'm getting pretty good at the ones in my Intermediate-level books."

"How did you manage that?" Iruka asked.

"We found some books. I understand that my clan was pretty good at it, so I studied extra hard. Tsunami and I seem to have some talent with them. The Hokage gave us some help with them." Granted that the help was mostly after the fact, but Iruka could not be told about his mom's help.

Iruka sighed. "I see. Would you mind if I came around to take you out to ramen again sometimes?"

"I'd like that," Naruto said with a smile.

"I also owe you the reason why you haven't been able to make Clones," Iruka added.

Naruto laughed. "Don't worry about it, Iruka-sensei. I already know the reason."

"You do!? What is it?"

"I have too much chakra and my chakra is too dense," Naruto explained. "I have a hard time doing genjutsus, especially if they require very little chakra. Despite its classification, the Clone Technique is more genjutsu than ninjutsu."

"Too much chakra?" Iruka said incredulously.

"Sometimes I really overpowered it, just to see if you would notice," Naruto admitted.

"But an Academy student shouldn't have a problem overpowering that technique," Iruka protested.

Naruto snorted. "I have two strikes against me. I'm an Uzumaki and we have more chakra than anyone, which is why my sister also can't do it, and my prisoner stretched out my chakra coils. Your test is biased against my clan and me in particular."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Iruka demanded.

"I told you it was a test," Naruto said. "I may be a bit of a clown, but I'm not stupid enough to bull my way into an organization where I'm not wanted."

"The Academy isn't representative of Konoha's shinobi," Iruka protested.

"It's staffed by Konoha's shinobi, isn't it?" Naruto countered. "But, like I said, I'll probably give Konoha's shinobi another chance at some point."

Iruka sighed and stood up. "Take care of yourself, Naruto-kun. I'll keep in touch."

"You too. Thanks for stopping by and for the apology, Iruka-sensei," Naruto responded.

"Give my best wishes to your sister as well."

* * *

A couple of hours later there was another knock on the door. When he answered it, a silver-haired man in a standard Konoha Shinobi outfit was there. The man wore his Leaf Badge on his forehead and had it slanted so it covered one eye. He wore a mask that covered the lower half of his face. Naruto recognized his chakra as belonging to the Dog ANBU that had sometimes guarded him or the Hokage when he was younger.

"Hello, Naruto-kun," he said. "Can I come in and talk to you?"

"Sure," Naruto said, and pointed him toward the front room's only sofa.

"My name is Hatake Kakashi. I was supposed to be your jounin sensei."

Naruto recognized the name from his mom's stories. He raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware that I was expected to graduate."

"Hokage-sama told us you were much better than the Academy reported and left a spot open for you. There was some reshuffling that had to be done when you didn't initially pass."

"I see," Naruto said. He waited for Kakashi to continue.

"Hokage-sama told me you passed a retest, but decided to directly enter the reserves instead. I'd like to know why."

"Why do you want to know?" Naruto asked. "Only a couple of people have ever thought I'd amount to anything." He thought it was probably because the man had been his dad's student, but wanted to see how much he would say.

"Let me ask something in return," Kakashi countered. "Why did you let me in?"

"I recognized you from when I was younger."

"You did?" Kakashi looked surprised.

"Chakra sensor," Naruto said.

"Ah," Kakashi said. He hesitated for a few moments. "I wanted you on my team because I owe your parents a debt and this is the first time I've really been permitted to try and repay it."

"You knew my parents?" Naruto asked excitedly, playing his part.

"I did," Kakashi said with a smile. "However, I'm not allowed to say anything. You'll have to ask Hokage-sama about them."

Naruto pouted. "He always says I'm too young."

Kakashi ruffled his hair. "You'll grow up soon enough. So, why did you want to go straight to the reserves?"

"I'm tired of being hated for something that's not my fault," he said. "Jiichan says that Konoha's shinobi are different than the civilians, but I'm not convinced based on my teachers. Only Iruka-sensei treated me decently, and the Headmaster and the other three teachers kept trying to hold me down. Not a very reassuring percentage. Did you come to try and convince me to join your team?"

Kakashi sighed. "I would like to, but I can't really ditch the team I have at this point."

Naruto smiled. Kiba was a friend of sorts, and even if Shino was not friendly, per se, he was polite. He did not really like Sasuke, but he did not want to cause problems for the troubled boy.

"Why didn't you ask for my sister?" Naruto asked curiously.

"Hokage-sama wouldn't let you both be on the same team and when the reshuffle happened, Kurenai-chan wouldn't give her up and I wasn't allowed to say anything that might convince her otherwise."

Naruto nodded. "Thanks for stopping by, Kakashi-san. It's getting late and Tsunami-chan will wake me up when she gets up tomorrow morning."

Kakashi said, "Take care, Naruto-kun."

* * *

The next morning, Naruto as Tsunami got to Training Ground 8 at 6:30. Hinata was already there and Sakura showed up within seconds of her.

"Hello, Sakura-chan, Hinata-chan," she greeted her teammates.

They returned greetings. Hinata looked nervous, but that was normal for her. Sakura looked pensive.

"Something wrong, Sakura-chan?" she asked.

"Just thinking," the pink-haired girl said.

"I've never seen you this worried about something," Tsunami said.

Sakura grimaced. "Kurenai-sensei questioned my dedication to being a shinobi yesterday after our meeting."

"This is about your crush on Sasuke, isn't it?" the redhead asked.

"It's not just a crush!" Sakura snapped.

Tsunami held up her hands. "I'm not going to fight you about whether your feelings are real or not. I'm just saying that trying to attract a boy is not a good reason to be a kunoichi. The world is cruel and enemy shinobi are not going to give you a pass because you're only in it for a boy."

"I'm not a kunoichi just for Sasuke-kun!" Sakura shouted. "I'm a kunoichi because I want to be able to fight for myself and my family!"

"Good for you," Naruto said. "Make sure you take it seriously. Both of my parents were killed in action despite being very powerful shinobi. If you don't take training seriously, you'll probably die and take Hinata-chan and me down with you."

Sakura grimaced. "Yeah, Kurenai-sensei said something similar."

Tsunami turned to Hinata. "You're from a big shinobi family, Hinata-chan. Do you have any ideas about what the test is about?" Her mother had refused to give her any hints when she had asked in her mindscape.

Hinata poked her fingers together. "My family doesn't talk to me much," she stuttered. "I don't believe they think I'll pass."

"Nonsense," Tsunami exclaimed. "We'll work together and help each other pass! Right, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura nodded.

"Remember what Iruka-sensei said yesterday?" Naruto prompted. "He said that teammates were critical to our success as shinobi. We should start working together today!"

Hinata gave her a timid smile.

They worked out some rough tactics if the test involved combat. Hinata would take point with Tsunami backing her up at midrange and Sakura supporting the two of them from longer range. Hinata tried to say that Tsunami was better at close range, but Tsunami disagreed.

"I know the only reason I beat you in spars in the Academy was because you were holding back, Hinata-chan," she said. "You're too nice! Don't worry, I'll beat the niceness out of you! At least for fighting. You can be as nice as you want off-duty." Naruto grinned at her to let her know that she was teasing her.

"You'll beat the niceness out of her?" Sakura said incredulously.

"Well, not really," Tsunami answered. "I have a gift that makes anyone want to clobber me. Just ask my brother. Come to think of it—he has it too!" It was true—her clones could infuriate her.

Hinata giggled behind her raised hand.

Sakura snorted. "I can believe that. Your brother is annoying."

Naruto frowned. "How would you know? You haven't really talked to him since he rescued you from bullies."

Sakura chuckled nervously. "He told you about that? It's not that I wasn't grateful—it's just that he's so loud and orange!"

Tsunami rolled her eyes. Sakura was one to talk about loudness. And orange was a great color. She was sad that her mother had vetoed orange going with her red hair. She did admit that the jumpsuits were not flattering at all. She had started wearing them to get attention and had never stopped even after deciding that it wasn't worth it.

"He saved me from bullies too," Hinata said quietly. She turned bright red when the other two looked at her.

Tsunami still was not sure what Hinata thought about her other self. She always clammed up and turned red whenever she asked.

They talked for another few minutes when Kurenai appeared in a swirl of leaves. "I'm glad to see they you're all on time," she said with a smile.

She pulled out a pink, a red, and a black ball as well as a timer. "There are three baskets with lids on them in the training ground. They're color-coded to the balls."

She tossed a ball to each girl. The balls matched their hair colors.

"The object of the test is to place your ball in the right color basket within half an hour. The only rule is that you have to place your own ball yourself. You can't use a clone to do it for you, Tsunami. Since this is the only rule, I'm not going to answer any questions. I _will_ be trying to stop you, so do your best. Anyone who fails this test will be sent back to the Academy or dropped from the program regardless of how your potential teammates do. Understand?"

All three girls said, "Yes."

Kurenai placed the timer and started it. She disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Shadow Clone," Tsunami said.

"How do you know it wasn't a genjutsu?" Sakura asked.

"I can't be certain, but I'm actually pretty good at sensing them thanks to my chakra sensing technique," Naruto said. "I just can't dispel them subtly.

"We're working together, right? We'll go to whichever basket is closest first, okay?"

Hinata quickly nodded. Sakura followed suit after a second's hesitation.

"Hinata-chan, can you see the baskets with your bloodline?" Naruto asked.

Hinata pointed them out after activating her Byakugan. They were all about equal distance. Sakura's was on the left, Hinata's in the middle, and hers on the right.

"We'll start with Sakura-chan's and work our way clockwise," Naruto said.

"Okay," the other two answered.

They started toward the basket which was about 100 meters away, just within the edge off the woods that made up some of the training ground. Naruto extended her senses using the Mind's Eye Technique. She could feel chakra in the air around them. She pulsed her chakra strongly, sending it out. The feel of the chakra dissipated, but some remained. The chakra increased.

"She's layering genjutsu faster than I can dispel them," Naruto muttered to the others.

"I can see through them with my bloodline," Hinata said, "but I don't know if I can keep it up the whole time."

"Do it as much as you can," Tsunami directed.

The next 10 minutes were extremely frustrating. Hinata did her best to lead them through the genjutsus, but the terrain was littered with traps. Naruto and Sakura both got caught multiple times, and had to be freed. Tsunami was kicking herself at not scouting the training ground out ahead of time. Then she kicked herself again.

"She only said I couldn't use clones to place the balls," Tsunami groaned. She quickly made 20 Shadow Clones and set them out to disarm traps. The clones did not last long due to kunai and shuriken strikes, but Naruto kept replacing them. It took them another seven minutes to get to Sakura's basket.

With a pleased sigh, Sakura placed her ball.

"Let's get Hinata-chan's done," Tsunami said.

"There's only about 10 minutes left, Tsunami-chan," Hinata said. "Maybe we should split up?"

Tsunami shook her head. "There's no way we could do it alone, Hinata-chan. One of us could never make it without help. We'll do it together, okay?"

They fought through the traps and genjutsu. Sadly, Hinata's chakra got too low to keep using the Byakugan.

With less than a minute to go, they finally reached where Hinata's basket was supposed to be. To their delight, Tsunami's basket was right beside Hinata's. They both placed their balls just before they heard the timer go off.

They heard clapping as all the genjutsu dissipated.

"Very good girls," Kurenai said. "There's just one more part of the test."

Naruto rolled her eyes. Sakura groaned. Hinata pushed her fingers together nervously.

"The last part of the test is for you to tell me what the point of the test was," she said.

"It wasn't the balls?" Sakura asked.

"Not the balls," Naruto said. "It appears to be something trickier or she wouldn't have asked."

"It was to see how we would do the challenge," Hinata stuttered nervously. "Whether we would work together."

Hinata and Sakura looked at the Hyuuga princess.

"That's why the last two baskets were together," Hinata said. "If we had split up, one of us would have failed."

Naruto snapped her fingers. "She never said what would fail us."

"I bet if one of us failed then the others would too, right?" Sakura said. "There are no teams with less than 3 genin."

Kurenai smiled. "That's correct, all of you. Additionally, you would have failed if you had tried to pass individually regardless of whether you fulfilled the apparent goals. If you had worked together, I may have passed you even without getting the balls in the baskets."

"Did we pass, Kurenai-sensei?" Tsunami asked.

"Yes, you did," she replied. "Welcome to Team Eight."

Tsunami whooped in celebration.

Sakura yelled, "Yes!"

Hinata smiled shyly.

"I'm giving you the rest of the day off," Kurenai said. "We'll meet here again tomorrow at the same time for training and missions." She smiled again. "Congratulations."

As the four of them made to depart, Hinata nervously asked Tsunami, "Tsunami-chan can I talk to you, please?"

"Sure, Hinata-chan," she answered.


	9. Chapter 8: New Jobs

Naruto as Tsunami followed Hinata to a place where they could talk. The Hyuuga girl was clearly nervous. She kept pushing her fingers together which was her biggest nervous habit other than her stutter. They reached a clearing in the training ground that had enough visibility that they could clearly see if they were being spied on.

When they sat down, Hinata looked like she was going to ask Tsunami something before closing her mouth. Finally, Tsunmai asked gently, "What did you want to talk to me about, Hinata-chan?"

The other girl prevaricated for a few moments before asking in a rush, "How is your brother taking having to go back to the Academy again?"

Naruto was a little stunned. Hinata had asked about her real self before, but usually just small things. She actually seemed worried about him.

"Oh, he's not going back," Tsunami said absently.

Hinata started to hyperventilate. "He gave up!?" she gasped.

"What? No!" Tsunami said, concerned for her friend. "We finally found why we couldn't do the Clone Technique: too much chakra. The Hokage tested him using a different type of clone and he passed."

Hinata seemed to calm down. "Which team is he on?"

"Oh, he went straight to the reserves," Tsunami said.

"Why?" Hinata stammered, agitated. "What about his dreams of being Hokage?"

"He's not giving those up," Tsunami said. "It's just that he noticed that he isn't treated very well by our peers or the teachers. It happens that both of us are very good at sealing. He thought it would be prudent to improve his reputation by becoming well-known as a talented sealer. Once his reputation has improved, he'll join the active forces." She paused and then added sassily, "Of course, he still has to contend with me if he wants to be Hokage."

Hinata looked relieved and finally relaxed.

"Why are you so interested in Naruto?" Tsunami asked. "You never really hung out with anyone except me."

The dark-haired girl blushed furiously and poked her fingers together some more. Tsunami was struck by an image of a shy version of Sakura talking about Sasuke.

"You like him," Tsunami said, astonished.

"Well, yes," Hinata stuttered. "He would be a very good friend, but I'm too shy. . ."

"No, you _like like_ him," the redhead restated.

Hinata's blush turned even redder. "You can't tell him!" she hissed.

"Okay, okay," Tsunami said, holding up her hands. Inside, Naruto did not know what to do with this information. "Why, though? You seemed to mostly ignore him like everyone else."

Hinata looked at the ground. "I'm too shy and weak. I didn't think he would want to talk to me."

Tsunami lifted the other girl's chin. "You're not weak, Hinata-chan. It's true that you're shy, but that can be overcome. Naruto has so few friends that he would have welcomed anyone."

Hinata tried to sink into herself again, but Tsunami asked, "Why him instead of Sasuke like everyone else?"

Rallying herself a little, Hinata rolled her eyes. "The Uchiha is pretty, but shallow. He has everything he wants offered him, but he just sits and broods. He's not the only orphan, but he acts like he is. Naruto on the other hand, has nothing except you." Hinata's eyes started to shine. "Things don't come easy to him, but he works hard and never gives up!"

Tsunami was touched that she had managed to inspire the other girl. She started to smile to herself when the reality of starting a relationship of that kind with Hinata came crashing down on her. Hinata was as close to a princess as Konoha had, while her other self was the village pariah. Hinata's family would never allow it, even if they did not hate him for the Fox. But more than that, she did not feel that she could start a relationship as Naruto while being a teammate as Tsunami—at least not without confessing, which she absolutely did not want to do at this point.

"I'm glad my brother has inspired you, Hinata-chan," she said tentatively. "Have you considered what your family would say if you tried to date Naruto?"

Hinata looked stricken. "You're saying I should give up?"

"I'm not saying that," Tsunami said gently. "I'm saying that now is not the time. We're only 12. We have several years before we should really be thinking about marriage or anything like it. What would happen to your position in your clan if you defied it to date Naruto?"

"I'd be given the Caged Bird Seal," she said tearfully. "There are already many of the Clan Elders who think I should be given it so that Hanabi-chan can be the heir."

"I don't think Naruto would be able to take it if he were the cause of you getting that awful seal. Now, if Naruto becomes the Hokage or improves his standing in another way," Tsunami said, "it would be different."

"But that could be too late!" Hinata said.

Tsunami nodded. "It could. One of you could be married by that time or something else could happen. I don't think you should pin your hopes on Naruto, Hinata-chan. You don't really know him."

"I do!" Hinata protested with a blush. "I've watched him from afar."

"The mask he shows everyone isn't the real Naruto," Tsunami said. She wondered to herself if there actually were a real Naruto or just different masks.

"I know that," Hinata said. "That's why I like him. He tries to make everyone else happy by smiling and playing jokes, even when he's hurting inside."

Tsunami pulled Hinata up by the arms and gave her a hug. "You need to find your own strength, Hinata-chan. That's what Naruto and I have done, even though we support each other. Drawing strength from Naruto won't help you much unless you can find it in yourself to emulate the part of him that inspires you. I'll help you, of course, but I won't always be there. This is something you have to do, if you want it to last."

"Okay, Tsunami-chan," Hinata said. "Thanks for listening to me."

"No problem, Hinata-chan," she said with a wide grin. "I'm happy to do it. You'll see how strong you really are. You don't need a boy to do that, even if he's as awesome as my brother."

Hinata giggled.

* * *

As awesome as his orange jumpsuit was for getting attention, even Naruto had to admit that it was not very professional. In order to impress the shinobi-supply storekeepers that he was serious, he would need a new outfit.

After she was done talking to Hinata, Tsunami went to a clothing shop. She could have gone to a shinobi-supply store, but the place she had in mind was cheaper and she was not concerned about getting something durable. She browsed through the shinobi aisles until she found something that she like that would fit on her original form. She picked out a green light jacket with decent-sized pockets and navy blue pants with an orange stripe. She got three sets.

She went to the counter and paid. As she was picking up her purchases she saw the moment when the storekeeper recognized her as "the demon brat's sister." Most civilians seemed to pity her, which made her angry. A few thought that she might be a demon too, but they seemed to be rare.

"You know that _thing_ is not really your brother," he said. He must have realized who she was buying the clothes for.

"I did not realize you were a more talented shinobi than the Fourth Hokage, Mr. Civilian Shopkeeper," she sneered.

"Why would you say such a thing?" the man said, offended.

"The Fourth declared that my brother was a hero for protecting us from _that_ ," she explained. "By saying that _that_ is my brother, you spit on the Fourth's skill as a seal master and deny his last wishes."

"But everyone says. . ." the man said defensively.

"Does that 'everyone' include the Third Hokage or Jiraiya-sama?" she interrupted. "Shinobi who actually know how sealing works? The next time a shinobi buys from your shop ask her if a storage seal becomes the object sealed into it. Don't expect me or my friends to shop here again."

She marched out the door. Her threat was mostly empty. She did not have much influence. Hinata would be offended at the man, but she did not imagine that Hinata did her own shopping. She did not think that Sakura or Ino would change any habits on her 'brother's' behalf. Really, the only one she could expect to join in her boycott would be Iruka, if she bothered to tell him.

* * *

The next morning, Tsunami and her teammates met their new sensei at their training ground.

"Thank you for being on time," Kurenai said. "Reputation and first impressions are very important for shinobi. You always want to appear competent to your clients and punctuality is a big part of this."

"I've heard chuunin complain that there's a jounin that's late to everything, Sensei," Tsunami commented.

"When you have the reputation that Sharingan no Kakashi does _and_ can back it up, then you can develop quirks like that," Kurenai said with a frown. "The only reason he gets away with it is because he can't really be replaced. That's not true of any of you.

"Now, every team has a primary role in the village. The Densetsu no Sannin were a heavy combat team. The Ino-Shika-Chou were a capture and interrogation team. The current team with their children is intended for the same role. Can any of you guess what this team's projected role is?"

The three kunoichi looked at each other and then shook their heads.

"It's fine if you don't know yet," their sensei said. "I picture this team used for scouting and skirmishing. Can you tell me why?"

"Well, Hinata-chan has the Byakugan and I can make a lot of Shadow Clones," Tsunami said. "Those are both very useful for scouting."

"That's correct," said Kurenai. "And the skirmishing?"

"Skirmishers use hit and run tactics to wear down an enemy," said Sakura, "usually in support of a heavy combat group."

"That's true in a war, Sakura-san," Kurenai said. "For team missions, it means that we're more like to get combat missions that require us to move quickly and travel light. We usually won't be assigned hard targets other than in support of other teams."

The three girls nodded.

"Now, just like teams have roles, individuals on teams have roles," she continued. "I'd like each of you to suggest what your role on the team should be, starting with Hinata-chan, and then Tsunami-san, and lastly Sakura-san."

"Most of my techniques are close-range other than the Byakugan," Hinata stuttered.

"My techniques are close-range and mid-range," Tsunami said. "I would probably be best backing up Hinata-chan or taking secondary targets. I also have Shadow Clones which are a very useful support tool with the numbers I can make."

"I don't really have any unique techniques yet," Sakura said with a frown, "but from what I've read I expect I would be good at genjutsu or medical techniques. I'm pretty good at throwing weapons too, so I expect that I should take a support role."

"Those are all excellent observations," Kurenai said. "Those are also the roles you used in yesterday's test, which I think worked well.

They spent the rest of the day showing Kurenai and each other their skills. Tsunami showed them her taijutsu, Adamantine Attacking Chains, and Shadow Clones, including her skill with Replacing her Shadow Clones. Out of the three of them, Tsunami had the most skills by far, followed by Hinata who had her advanced taijutsu and her eyes. Sakura only had the basic Academy skills.

* * *

After Kurenai let them go, Naruto returned to her apartment and then changed into her original form. He had a meeting with the Hokage and the ANBU quartermaster.

The quartermaster, who wore a squirrel mask, was receptive to buying seals from him. Naruto offered variations on storage seals and explosive notes that had different triggers and functionality than the standard ones. He also had paralysis seals, element storage and conversion seals, privacy seals, and communication seals. Squirrel was impressed the most by the rate at which he could produce the seals.

"I'll be honest," the ANBU said. "We already have a couple of suppliers that give us all of these seals, none of them are super advanced. However, we _do_ have trouble keeping some of them in stock, due to how slow our suppliers are. I'd definitely like to contract you as a supplier, if your work tests out."

They haggled a little in order to set a price list as well as a projected first order. To the ANBU's annoyance, the Hokage helped Naruto haggle. After that, they set an appointment for when Naruto could demonstrate his wares.

After Squirrel left, Naruto remained to shoot the breeze with his grandpa figure. They were interrupted by the door slamming open. A figure even shorter than Naruto rushed into the room before tripping over its long scarf.

The boy, who looked eight-years old, picked himself up and looked around. "It was you! You tripped me!" he yelled, pointing at Naruto.

Naruto shook his head. He did not know if the kid was blaming him because he was available or indirectly due to his "furry problem."

"Whatever, kid," he said dismissively.

The kid looked indignant at being ignored and shouted, "Don't you know who I am? I'm the Hokage's grandson!"

Naruto looked at the boy with contempt. "I don't care if you're his grandmother, you lose points in my book for banking on his name instead of your own!"

The boy gaped at him open mouthed. Naruto hated people who used their friend's or family's reputation to try and get by. He himself was the son of the Fourth Hokage and the great-grandson of the last Daimyo of Uzu no Kuni. Even if he _were not_ forbidden from mentioning either of those, he would not. He wanted to succeed by his own prowess.

He brushed by a shinobi in his mid-twenties wearing sunglasses, _inside_.

"Watch where you're going, ruffian," the man said.

Naruto snorted. The man was obviously not one of his fans—whether do to the Fox or his pranks, it did not really matter to Naruto. The man obviously cared about image more than anything.

Naruto lazily walked through the village without a destination. He was ignored rather than shunned. People's eyes passed over him passively rather than actively; he felt indifference rather than hate. He sighed. Things would probably go back to normal once people realized that he had changed his standard outfit.

Naruto's sixth sense was telling him that something was off. There was no danger, just something weird. He looked around and saw a square box with eyeholes following him. He used his Mind's Eye Technique to determine that it was the kid from the Hokage's office.

"You can come out now, Brat," he said.

"Just what I would expect from my rival!" the boy said as he used a poorly made smoke bomb to "cover" his escape from his hiding spot.

"Rival?" Naruto asked, perplexed.

"Yes!" shouted the boy, "Jiichan told me that you wish to be Hokage too!"

"Hokage, huh?" Naruto said. "Why do you want to be Hokage?"

"So that people will acknowledge me for me!" he proclaimed. "The only time I'm not dismissed for being a kid is when people know who my grandpa is. He named me Konohamaru after the village, but I'm only ever called 'Honorable Grandson.' I want to step outside his shadow!"

"That's a lousy reason to want to be Hokage, Brat," Naruto said. "If you just want acknowledgment, you could be a fabulous artist or musician. That would put you more outside his shadow than following in his footsteps. The Hokage is the one that protects everyone, even to the point of laying down his life!" Naruto said a silent prayer for his father. "Someone like you are now, does not deserve to be Hokage!"

"Teach me, Boss!" Konohamaru said. "Jiichan said that you were strong for your age!"

Naruto had a feeling that the Hokage was trying to distract his grandson with him to get a little peace. He had an evil thought.

"Sure, Brat," he said. "I'll tell you one of the things I did to train: pranks."

"Pranks?" the smaller boy said.

"Pranks," he nodded. "Pranks are like mini-shinobi missions. They require the same type of planning and stealth to do a good one. Are you willing to follow my rules for using pranks as training?"

Konohamaru nodded eagerly. "Lay it on me, Boss!"

"First, you're only allowed to hurt their pride. No injuries. Second, no major property damage. If it takes more than half an hour to clean up, you went too far. Third, it's all right to get caught as long as you pull off the prank. If you get a reputation, it makes it harder to pull off your pranks and the value of pranking as training goes up. If you do get caught, take your punishment with a smile. You want to be a prankster, not a punk or a bully. Fourth and last, target those that take themselves too seriously. You'll be doing them a favor by deflating their ego. Targeting those that treat you poorly for a bit of revenge is great too, as long as you follow the first two rules. Got it?"

The boy, who had pulled out a notebook and was eagerly writing, nodded energetically.

"Okay," the blond said. "Give me some ideas of what your first pranks would be and I'll give you some pointers."

Naruto smiled to himself as the other boy began to list some ideas. The Hokage should know better than to try and dump his grandson on him. He also figured that Mr. I-wear-sunglasses-indoors would be a common target. That made him smile. Who said petty revenge could not be sweet?


	10. Chapter 9: Training

That night, Naruto asked his mom, "What're you going to teach me next, Mom?"

"Chakra Seal Manifestation," she said. "Once you get that down, I'll teach you the seal for Adamantine Sealing Chains."

"I'll be able to make chains like yours?" he asked.

"Yes, the chains that come from the seal will be able to suppress chakra like my own chains," she said. "Chakra Seal Manifestation is also useful for other short-duration seals like Privacy Seals or for quick traps. Your father used it with his Hiraishin seal during tough fights. The easiest way to use it is with your hands, but when you get better at it, you can use your feet to do it. It's also possible to use your chains, since they're extensions of your chakra, but that's much harder. It took me years to be able to do it like that."

"Awesome!" he said. If he could spawn the seal for the Sealing Chains with his Attacking Chains, that would almost make up for not having his mom's "special chakra."

"Hey, Mom?" he said. "Do you have something that will help me when I eventually have missions out of the village? My Shadow Clones don't typically last longer than a day."

"I have been working on a seal, that should draw natural chakra and convert it to make your clone last," she said.

"Natural chakra?" Naruto asked.

"It's the natural energy that living things leave behind in the earth. People who can use it directly are called sages. This particular seal slowly draws from it and converts it to normal chakra."

"That sounds pretty cool," Naruto said.

"It's rate is very slow, slower than a normal shinobi's recharge rate," his mom said, "but it will be enough to support a Shadow Clone that isn't using a lot of techniques."

"So my clones wouldn't be able to make a lot of seals, while I was gone?" he asked.

"Not all at once," she said. "You could do a few every hour, but certainly not up to your standards."

* * *

Their second day of training, Kurenai talked about her plans to train them in teamwork exercises, tracking theory, stealth, trap making, and ambushes as well as physical and chakra conditioning. She also offered to teach Sakura her personal taijutsu style which paired well with genjutsu.

"I don't know much about the Hyuuga or Uzumaki fighting styles," she said. "I'm going to assume that you have your own resources for those."

After she had finished outlining what areas she would teach them, she asked, "Can anyone tell me what the most important aspect of teamwork is?"

"Communication?" offered Sakura.

"It's true that communication is very important for teamwork," Kurenai said, "and we'll be learning some very important communication skills, but that isn't what I feel is the most important."

None of the girls said anything.

"Trust," Kurenai said. "You have to be able to trust your teammates."

Tsunami felt guilty. She was hiding three major secrets from her teammates. Granted, they were all S-rank secrets. The Hokage had absolutely forbidden her from telling anyone her parents' identities. She was even forbidden from confirming that she was a real Uzumaki to anyone not on her team, although the observant would figure it out. She was also forbidden from letting anyone know about her special Disguise Technique unless it was life or death. She was allowed to tell her team, if it were mission critical (the Hokage told her that mission critical meant that it could not be solved any other way with a degree of success) _and_ she trusted her teammates. The only one of the three, she _could_ tell outright was that she held the Kyuubi. The Hokage only asked her to use her best judgment and to be cautious.

When she had asked why her Disguise was S-rank, when by all rights it should be A-rank at best, the Hokage had told her that someone had leaked her jinchuuriki status against his will and that her secrets were not safe with only the usual precautions.

"I'm not saying that you can't have secrets," Kurenai continued. "Eventually, if you advance in rank, you'll be privy to village secrets that you are required to keep from even your closest friends. Plus, everyone is entitled to a certain amount of privacy. What do you think I mean by trust?"

"You have to be able to trust your teammates to have your back!" Tsunami said.

"That's right," she said. "You'll be trusting each other with your lives. You have to be able to know that your teammates won't let you down. Part of this is that you have to really know each other's capabilities."

Kurenai then taught them the basic Konoha hand signs and they drilled on them for an hour.

"Are you ready for your first mission?" Kurneai asked.

"Yes!" Tsunami proclaimed. "How come we didn't do one yesterday?"

"A group of chuunin makes it a practice to flood the mission office on the day after the 'real' genin exam. Waiting in line for a D-rank is not my idea of fun."

Tsunami wondered what she meant about that.

"Why would they do that, Kurenai-sensei?" Sakura asked.

"They think it's funny," Kurenai said, rolling her eyes.

"Why?" Tsunami asked.

"Mostly harmless hazing."

They walked to the mission office. The Hokage was sitting at a table. Iruka was assisting him.

"Good morning, Team Eight," the Hokage said.

"Good morning, Hokage-sama," said everyone except Naruto, who said, "Hi, Jiichan!"

"Tsunami-chan!" Iruka scolded. "I expect better from you than from your brother! Show Hokage-sama some respect!"

The Hokage chuckled. "It's alright, Iruka-san. I'm used to the attention from the Uzumaki twins and I don't mind it."

He shuffled some papers. "I have some very important missions here for your sensei to choose from. . ." He looked down at the papers again. "The Inuzuka kennels need to be cleaned out, the orphanage needs some story readers, the Akimichi need some supplies transported. . ."

Tsunami looked at her teammates. They were both staring at the Hokage with slack jaws. She knew that D-ranks were the least important missions, but these were just chores that anyone could do!

She looked at the Hokage. His eyes were twinkling. She had been pranked! And not just any prank. It was a prank that every genin was subjected to, judging by Kurenai, Iruka, and the others' faces. The Old Man would pay for this.

"Okay, you got me, Jiichan," she said. "That was a decent prank, not up to my own standards, but still decent. What are the real missions?"

The Hokage chuckled. "That's what makes this prank so good. . ." He paused to light his pipe.

"You mean?" she said in horror.

"Yep, those were the real missions," he said.

"Why didn't anyone warn us it would be like this?" asked Sakura.

"And ruin this moment?" the Hokage asked. He chuckled again. "Plus we would have a hard time convincing young people to be shinobi if we told them they'd have to do months of chores before being allowed to do 'real' missions. But now that you have your Badges, it's too late." The Hokage finished off with a passable "evil laugh."

The Hokage was laying the teasing on pretty thick. She smiled sweetly. Let him have his fun—she would return the favor.

She heard Iruka say quietly, "Uh oh, I recognize that grin. I think you're in trouble Hokage-sama."

He must have been louder than he thought, since Hinata giggled and Sakura hissed, "Don't do anything your stupid like your brother would do, Tsunami-chan."

Tsunami waved her off as Kurneai said, "We'll help with the supplies, Hokage-sama."

She took the mission scroll that Iruka handed her and led her students out of the office.

They met a middle-aged Akimichi woman at a warehouse in the market district. Their task was to transport fresh food ingredients to three different restaurants.

"I can seal the supplies into storage seals for ease of transport," Tsunami offered.

Kurenai thought for a moment. "I'll allow that, if you all agree to extra physical conditioning this afternoon. Part of the point of D-ranks is to help get you into shape for more difficult missions. I want to encourage you to think of ways to make your missions easier, but I don't want you to fall behind in your training either."

The girls all looked at each other and nodded.

The mission did not take long. After they reported success to the Hokage, Kurenai dismissed them for lunch. After lunch they met for physical training.

Tsunami enjoyed the training. She would always rather do things than listen to a lecture. Plus, it was always more fun to do things with others. Hinata seemed to quietly enjoy the training too, but after thirty minutes, Sakura started to complain.

"Sakura-san," Kurenai said gravely, "I thought you wanted to be a serious kunoichi."

"I do," Sakura replied.

"Shinobi are required to run for hours in order to get to and from missions," their sensei said. "Since our team is a 'First Response' type of team, this is especially important for us. If this type of exercise tires you after only half an hour, you need to step up your personal training."

"But Ishida-sensei said that a kunoichi should always look her best," Sakura protested. "How can we do that with all that running?"

"She's still at the Academy?" Kurenai said with a grimace. "Ishida-san is one of those that thinks that kunoichi have to be the type of kunoichi she was, an infiltrator. If you want to be an infiltrator, we can have you moved to one of those teams, but I warn you that most infiltration missions involve places of ill repute rather than palaces."

"No that's okay," Sakura reassured her. "I'll do better."

"Make sure you eat more too," Kurenai said. "I don't want you fainting from lack of energy. Hinata-chan can tell you how much you should be eating."

The Hokage was not laughing when Naruto strung toilet paper all over the Hokage Tower that night. Tsunami smirked all through picking up their mission the next morning.

Most training days were repeats of their second day: lectures and drills in the early morning, followed by a D-rank mission and then physical training.

* * *

Naruto got contracts for seals from two other shinobi-supply stores as well as the ANBU quartermaster.

The clerk at the second store took a look at the seals. "These don't look like the other seals that we carry," he said.

"Most seals use an obscuration method so that they can't be copied," Naruto said. "This is usually done even for simple seals in order to prevent the inexperienced from injuring themselves trying to copy a seal without guidance. I use a different obscuration pattern than most due to the way I learned."

Naruto danced around saying that he used the Uzushio style rather than the Konoha style. The Hokage still did not want him claiming his Uzumaki blood publicly.

"My boss will need you to demonstrate these, but I think he'll be agreeable, assuming they work."

* * *

A week after team assignments, Kakashi visited Naruto in the evening.

"How would you feel about joining my team for practices once a week, Naruto-kun?" he asked.

"Why?" Naruto asked.

"Even though you're only in the Reserves, you should still keep up with more than just your seal work. My team would also benefit from another sparring partner."

Naruto thought about it. It _would_ help him out to be able to spar in his original form. His only real sparring partners had ever been his mom in his mindscape and his own clones. The infrequent Academy matches did not really count for much.

"Alright," he said. "I can come on Wednesdays." That was one of two days, the other being Sunday, that Kurenai gave them off of training. That way he would not have to worry about a Shadow Clone dispelling at the wrong time.

"That works. Be at Training Ground Three at 10," Kakashi said before disappearing in a Body Flicker.

* * *

The next Wednesday, Naruto showed up at Training Ground Three a little before 10. He was wearing his Leaf Badge for the first time as Naruto.

"Hey, Dead Last," Kiba yelled. "What are you doing here? And where did you get the Leaf Badge?"

"Hey, Dog Breath," Naruto yelled back. "Kakashi-sensei asked me to come and replace you so that your team could have a real shinobi."

Kiba stopped and started. Shino and Sasuke stared at him too.

"What!?" Kiba shouted. "No way!"

Naruto burst out in laughter. "Just kidding. You should have seen your face. Nah, Kakashi-sensei asked me to come and give you guys another sparring partner. I have the Leaf Badge because I'm in the Reserves."

"How did that happen?" Kiba asked. "You didn't pass the test."

"Turns out Mizuki was sabotaging my tests," Naruto said. "He's currently under investigation to see if he was sabotaging anyone else."

"No way!" Kiba shouted. "You couldn't even do a Clone!"

"It turns out I'm too awesome for the Clone Technique," Naruto said. "Too much chakra to make it work."

"What?!" Kiba shouted. "I don't believe you."

"It is true that Uzumaki-san has a very large amount of chakra," Shino said. "How do I know? My kikaichuu can sense that he has at least as much chakra as Kakashi-sensei and so does his sister."

"How did you get so much chakra, Dead Last?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto shrugged. "I didn't do anything special for it. Maybe it's inherited, but we're orphans and nobody has told us anything about our family."

"Why did you join the Reserves if you should have passed?" Kiba asked.

He shrugged again. "After the way I was treated by Mizuki and some others, it lost its luster. Truthfully, the only reason I joined the Reserves is so that I could practice fuuinjutsu."

"Sealing?" Sasuke asked.

"I like it and I seem to be talented at it," Naruto said.

The conversation died and they all set to waiting. Naruto pulled out one of his fuuinjutsu texts and started to read.

Half an hour later, Kakashi showed up. Kiba yelled at him and Sasuke looked even more irritated than normal. Naruto was irritated as well, but it was not a complete waste of his time since he had his text with him.

Kakashi had them do taijutsu-only spars. Based on his experience in the Academy, he and Kiba were close to the same level if they stuck to pure taijutsu without Kiba's partner, Akamaru. Sasuke was better and Shino was last. It was not that Shino was poor at taijutsu—he was actually better than most of their class had been—but the other three were better. Since it had been only a couple of weeks since the Academy, the results were typical. Sasuke won all of his spars. Naruto happened to win two out of his first three spars with Kiba and all of his with Shino. Shino had gotten lucky and won the last of his three spars with Kiba.

"Aargh!" Kiba growled in frustration. "This isn't fair! Most of my taijutsu moves are designed to be used in combination with Akamaru! Let me use him, Sensei and I'll wipe the floor with the Dead Last!"

"Now, now, Kiba-kun," Kakashi said, lifting his gaze from the orange book he had been reading. "That wouldn't be fair. Naruto-kun doesn't have any clan techniques to use, right?" He raised a brow, daring Naruto to say differently.

"Actually, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto said. "While I can't use any clan techniques, I do know the Shadow Clone Technique." This was true in that the Hokage had forbidden him from showing off any clan techniques trivially. "Hokage-jiichan allowed me to learn it after we discovered I had to much chakra for the normal Clone Technique. It'd be fair fighting Dog Breath and Akamaru-san if I can use Shadow Clones."

Kakashi stroked his masked chin thoughtfully. "Okay, Kiba-kun. You can use Akamaru-kun, your Four Legs Technique, and your Man Beast Clone, but no other clan techniques you might know. Naruto-kun, you can use three Shadow Clones. If one of them dispels, you can make a new one to replace it."

"Can I use Replacement too?" Naruto asked.

Kakashi nodded, "That would be okay, but Kiba-kun can use it too."

"You're going down, Dead Last," Kiba said.

Naruto bowed toward Akamaru and said, "I'll try not to hurt your servant too badly, Akamaru-san."

The puppy yipped in amusement. Kiba growled.

The match started with Kiba tossing Akamaru a pill, which turned the puppy red. Kiba shouted, "Four Legs Technique! Man Beast Clone!" Akamaru turned into a copy of Kiba and they both crouched and growled ferally before charging Naruto.

Naruto made the clone seal and formed three Shadow Clones. They spread out slightly. Naruto sealessly Replaced himself with one of the clones. Naruto himself target the "Kiba" he thought was really the puppy with the one of the clones. With some clever footwork and Replacements, he managed to get a good position on the presumed dog and gave him a hard blow in the back. The "Kiba" yipped and turned back into Akamaru.

The real Kiba had finished off the two clones facing him and charged Naruto. Naruto spawned two more clones to replace the two that had dispelled and turned to face Kiba. The new clones did not have time to spread out as Kiba clawed through them, causing them to dissipate in smoke. Naruto switched with his last Clone and then made three more as Kiba made short work of the sacrificial clone. This time they were able to spread out and come at the Inuzuka from all sides. Naruto was again able to get a favorable position on his opponent and hammered him into the ground.

"That was excellent use of the Replacement Technique, Naruto-kun," Kakashi made one of his rare comments. "I believe that was the deciding factor in the match."

After that, they went back to pure taijutsu matches. In the last match of the day, Naruto _finally_ managed to pull a win over Sasuke for the first time ever—mostly because of his stamina advantage over the Uchiha boy.

When he dismissed the others, Kakashi asked Naruto to stay. "I was fascinated to find out that you knew your mother's taijutsu style, Naruto-kun."

"My mother's style?" he said, playing dumb.

Kakashi nodded. "You're not bad at it, but it seems awkward for you in places."

"I learned it from Tsunami-chan," he said. "Our bodies are different enough that I can't do things exactly the way she can."

"Where did Tsunami-chan learn it?" Kakashi asked.

"The Hokage forbade her from saying," Naruto said. "She picked it up before she came back to Konoha, but she's never told me much of what happened while she was gone." He paused for a moment. "That's pretty cool that it's my mother's style."

"I'm not the best for teaching taijutsu," Kakashi said, "but I can give you some tips on how to adjust the style for your body type."

"Thanks, Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto exclaimed.

* * *

The following day, Naruto overslept slightly. He transformed, dressed and ran out the door.

When she arrived, Sakura exclaimed, "Why do you have whisker marks like your brother, Tsunami-chan?"

"Huh?" Tsunami asked.

Sakura pulled out a compact and handed it to her. Naruto opened it up and peered into the mirror. Sure enough, her face showed the familiar whisker birth marks.

"Oh, I forgot to cover them up this morning," she extemporized.

"I think they're cute," Hinata said. "Why do you cover them up?"

Tsunami grimaced. "They're the reason that Naruto-kun is treated poorly. When I first arrived, he advised me to hide mine."

"What?" Sakura exclaimed. "Do they think he's the Kyuubi or something?"

Tsunami chuckled nervously.

"Wait! You're serious?" Sakura said, floored. "That's stupid. Naruto-san is an idiot, but he's mostly harmless."

"Well. . ." Tsunami said. "We were born the day that the Fourth defeated the Kyuubi and we have the marks, and nobody knows who our parents were. . . People drew stupid conclusions."

"Where do the marks come from?" Hinata asked.

"The Hokage only said that it came from a condition of our mother's," Tsunami said. "He said that the First Hokage's youngest son also had the marks, because the First's wife had the same condition, but very few people remember because he died young."

"Wait," Sakura said, "wasn't the First's wife an Uzumaki too?"

"Yes," Tsunami said. "If you don't mind, I'm going to cover the marks with a Disguise."

"Won't that take a lot of chakra?" Sakura asked.

"Don't worry about it, Sakura-chan," she replied. "I have tons of chakra. It won't be an issue for a Disguise this minor."

That morning they were introduced to the menace known as Tora. Naruto was already stressed due to worrying about why her Tsunami Disguise showed her whisker marks. Finally, they cornered the beast for the third time.

"Hinata-chan," Tsunami growled. "Is anyone close enough to observe us?"

"No, Tsunami-chan," the other girl replied after looking with her Byakugan.

"Good!" Tsunami activated her Adamantine Attacking Chains. They sprouted from her back and thrust into the ground and then came up underneath the infernal cat and snared it.

"Grab it, Hinata-chan, before I kill it," she growled.

* * *

That night, Naruto informed his mother about what had happened with his Tsunami Disguise that morning.

"Have you noticed anything else odd about your Disguise Technique?" his mother asked.

"The only weird thing is that it's costing less chakra to turn into Tsunami and it actually takes some to turn back to myself if I'm starting from Tsunami. If I'm naked, it costs barely more to turn into her than it takes to turn into my normal form."

"Huh," his mother commented. "If I were to guess, I'd say that your Tsunami form is becoming more and more stable, however, the most stable form includes your whisker marks."

Naruto stared at her. "Does this mean I'm going to have to worry about appearing as her with blonde hair too?"

His mom shrugged. "I'm not sure. The fact that you ended up with blond hair always seemed weird to me. Usually the darker colors dominate inheritance. As far as I know I don't have any blonde genes, so it was weird that your hair took after your father's. I'd just keep an eye on it. I'd recommend that you check yourself over before leaving each morning. Your hair color should stand out more than your birthmarks anyway.

* * *

Things went similarly for the next two months, training with her team most days and Kakashi's on Wednesdays. The three genin were once again in the Mission Office. The Hokage was listing off more worthless D-rank missions. Just as Tsunami was about to open her mouth to complain, Kurenai said with a humorous note in her voice, "I think we're ready for a simple C-rank mission, Hokage-sama."

The Hokage stared at each of the genin for a few moments before saying, "Very well."

He looked through some of his scrolls before selecting one and handing it to Kurenai. "Bring in the Taki tutor," he said.

A chuunin brought in a man in well-made, but not aristocratic, civilian clothing.

"This is Suzuki Akira-san, the tutor for the daughter of the Daimyo of Taki no Kuni. You are to escort him and his charge to Takimitsukeru no Sato, the seat of the Daimyo of Taki no Kuni."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Mitsukeru means found or discovered. The grammar is probably wrong, but oh well. It's a play on Takigakure (Hidden Waterfall).


	11. Chapter 10: First C-Rank

Kurenai directed the genin to meet her at the gates in two hours. Naruto went to her apartment and packed for the mission. She was grateful that she knew sealing techniques. Her specialized storage seals made packing and unpacking easy. They also allowed her to categorize and segregate her supplies so that they were not all sealed into one large "bin."

She summoned and dismissed a Shadow Clone so that the long-term clone that was playing her "original self" would know what was happening. The clone had been active for three weeks. The final version of the seal her mother had made allowed for memories to be exchanged while sleeping. That way she would not get hammered by the memories all at once and she could keep updated on what her clone was doing. The clone usually posed as "Naruto" during the day except for when he trained with Kakashi's team. The clone would have to "be sick" on Wednesday.

She arrived at the meeting place 15 minutes early. Hinata was already there. Sakura arrived 5 minutes later and Kurenai 5 minutes after that. Kurenai quizzed them on supplies while they waited. It was more a formality than anything, since Kurenai had already drilled them on appropriate supplies extensively.

At the appointed time, a coach pulled up to next to them. Akira stepped out of the coach and introduced the Daimyo of Taki's daughter, Masami, and her governess, Rika. The driver of the coach was named Hideo.

Masami requested that Hinata ride with her. Kurenai nodded her approval and Hinata climbed into the coach.

Sakura complained lightly that Hinata got to ride.

"You would have been asked to ride if you were the heiress of a noble clan too, Sakura-chan," Tsunami snapped. She then paused as she realized that she herself qualified, even if nobody knew. She shook her head and said, "I don't really envy Hinata-chan her spot on this mission."

"Why?" Sakura asked with a sneer, "Too much of a tomboy?"

Tsunami laughed. "That too. No, I was referring to the discomfort of riding in that deathtrap. Look at the wheels bounce in the ruts. Even with cushions, I don't imagine the coach ride is pleasant."

After they had gotten through the outer sensing barrier that surrounded Konoha, Kurenai had Tsunami send Shadow Clones out ahead of them to scout the way. She also had her leave some to travel behind them as a rearguard.

When they camped for the evening, they were all subjected to Masami's incessant chatter. Her favorite topic was noble families. She had made a hobby of memorizing the characteristics of many of them.

"Noble shinobi clans are the easiest to identify, since they tend to marry within their clans they all look pretty similar," she said. "I immediately identified Hyuuga-san, of course. Their clan's eyes are quite distinctive.

"Konoha has four official noble clans: the Hyuuga, the Uchiha, the Akimichi, and the Aburame. They are all quite distinctive in appearance. There's also the Senju, who while not an official noble clan, is treated as such due to the prominence of the First and Second Hokage and their role in founding Konoha along with the Uchiha. They also intermarried quite regularly with the Uzumaki of Uzu no Kuni who were another noble clan."

She turned to Tsunami. "You could actually pass for an Uzumaki with your red hair. I understand that they had quite a few connections to Konoha before Uzu was destroyed."

Tsunami laughed. She hoped her nervousness did not show. "I'm actually blonde. I just dye my hair so people don't mistake me for my twin brother. Do you know how annoying it is to be mistaken for a boy?" It was almost the truth.

"Are you a Yamanaka then?" she asked before answering herself. "No, your eyes are the wrong shade of blue. Actually, your eyes look a lot like the Fourth Hokage's eyes. He also had blond hair."

Akira started at that. Actually, the whole camp began to stare at her, as if imagining her with blonde hair. Being known as the Fourth's daughter would be worse than being known as an Uzumaki.

She laughed again. "My brother and I were made orphans by the Kyuubi attack. No one's ever managed to figure out who our parents were, but if we were related to the Fourth, I don't think we would have ended up in an orphanage like we did."

With that, Masami dismissed her as unimportant. Her gaze passed to Sakura. "There aren't any notable clans with pink hair."

If Naruto knew Sakura, she was about to go into full-on I-will-marry-Sasuke-kun mode. She looked over and saw Sakura open her mouth, but a look from Kurenai, stifled her. Their sensei really hated Sakura's fangirl rants and doing it in front of a client? That would earn her a nasty genjutsu for sure.

Masami arched an eyebrow at Sakura, daring her to say something. Instead of what Tsunami knew from experience she was going to say, Sakura cleared her throat and said, "The Fourth Hokage was not from a notable clan."

Masami smiled condescendingly. "Occasionally, someone without a noble background gains power or influence, but it is _rare_."

Tsunami snorted. "I don't know about you, but I want to succeed on my own. Being given everything on a silver platter means you don't have your _own_ worth." That was one reason why it did not bother her most of the time that she could not tell people her own heritage. She thought warmly of Konohamaru and his struggle to step out of his grandpa's shadow.

Masami sneered at her, but before she could say anything, Kurenai asked, "If you don't mind satisfying my curiosity, why did you hire Konoha shinobi instead of Taki shinobi?"

Akira jumped in to answer the question. "We did hire shinobi from Takigakure, but they were all male and Masami-sama felt that she would be more comfortable with a kunoichi to protect her, so we released them. It is our good fortune that Hokage-dono supplied us with an all-kunoichi team."

"We're actually the first all-kunoichi team that Konoha has fielded for quite a while," Kurenai said. "I'm confident that my girls and I will meet and exceed your expectations."

With that, Kurenai made assignments for watches during the night. Hinata was assigned first watch, and the other two were sent to bed.

* * *

The following days were more of the same. Masami would make snotty remarks toward Tsunami or Sakura whenever she was around them. Luckily, she always requested Hinata to be her personal guard. That suited Sakura and Tsunami just fine.

The day after they entered Taki no Kuni, Tsunami was jolted into awareness by the memory of a Shadow Clone dismissing itself.

She dropped over to where Kurenai was jogging at the rear of the coach. "Kurenai-sensei, one of my Shadow Clones ran into a team of three Iwa shinobi!"

"Did they attack your clone?" Kurenai asked with a touch of worry.

She shook her head. "No, they didn't attack, but their leader asked for a meeting with my leader in a neutral location."

"Did they give their name?" Kurenai asked.

"She's a chuunin named Kurotsuchi," Tsunami responded.

Kurenai tapped her chin. "I've heard of her. She's the Tsuchikage's granddaughter and pretty strong for a chuunin."

"Are you going to meet with her?" Tsunami asked. "What if it's a trap?"

"I'll meet with her and I'll be careful," Kurenai said. "Genjutsu are actually very useful for this type of meeting. However, I _will_ take one of your Shadow Clones with me for communication."

Kurenai sped up and called for Hideo to stop the coach. She explained to everyone, what was going on.

Akira was very dissatisfied with Kurenai's plans. "What if there's a second team of shinobi that attack while you're gone?" he asked.

"It's highly unlikely that there will be anymore shinobi," Kurenai said. "Iwa would be crazy to start a war with Taki no Kuni and Hi no Kuni over a fourth daughter of a minor country's daimyo."

Masami looked very disgruntled at Kurenai's description of her. Sakura and Tsunami flashed each other brief smiles. Tsunami felt that Kurenai had made the slight intentionally, due to Masami's behavior.

"My genin are fully prepared to handle any other disturbance while I'm gone and I will be able to communicate with my team through Tsunami-san's Shadow Clones." She turned to Hinata. "Hinata-san, before I leave, find a secure location for you to wait for me. An open area with lots of visibility would be best."

Kurenai had discussed this type of scenario with them before. The benefit from being secure from sneak attacks outweighed the benefit from any shelter—at least until Hinata had enough chakra to keep her Byakugan constantly activated.

Hinata activated her Byakugan and searched. "There's a large meadow about 200 meters farther along the road."

Kurenai nodded and lead them to the meadow. "I shouldn't be gone more than two hours. I'll send word through the Shadow Clone if that changes. I don't expect any problems, but if there are any, I want you to race back to the border with Hi no Kuni, okay? The guards at the border station will help you."

After Kurenai and Tsunami's Shadow Clone left, Rika pulled cushions out of the coach. She and Masami sat on them in the shade of the coach. Hinata stood beside them. Hideo sat alertly in the driver's seat. Akira paced nervously a short distance from the coach. Tsunami and Sakura stood apart from the coach on either side so that they could see past the coach and so that between the three genin, who were arranged in a shallow triangle, they could see all the approaches. Every ten minutes, Hinata activated her Byakugan briefly to make sure that everything was as it should be.

After Kurenai had been gone for 40 minutes, Akira grabbed Sakura from behind as he paced by her and put a knife to her throat.

"Akira-san, what are you doing?" Masami demanded before Tsunami or Hinata could say anything.

"I think I know what Iwa nin are doing in Taki no Kuni," he said, "and I'm not going to wait for the Konoha jounin to hand me over to them."

"What?!" Tsunami exclaimed.

"They're after me," Akira said, "but they won't get me."

"How do you think that holding Sakura-chan hostage will help you?" Tsunami demanded. "You'll end up with Konoha after you too!"

"You'll tie up everyone else, and then I'll make a rock clone to tie up you and the pink one," Akira said. "My rock clone will check your knots and then I'll leave."

"How can we trust you?" Hinata said. "If the Iwa nin are after you, you're probably a missing nin."

"What choice do you have?" Akira said with a smirk. "The only one who could stop me isn't here."

"Oh, we can stop you," Tsunami said.

"Not without the pink one's pretty little throat being opened," Akira said snidely.

Everyone stared at Akira. Sakura was sweating and trying not to whimper.

Tsunami had a plan. It was dangerous—but she thought she was only really putting herself at risk, so she decided to try it.

She did a quick, seal-less Replacement with Sakura and thrust her chains out her back. The fact that she was shorter than Sakura meant that the knife was out of position. She reached up to grab the arm that held it, but the sudden jerk from her chains impacting Akira, meant that she missed. A sharp pain enveloped her right hand as she heard a gurgling sound behind her. She clutched her hand and fell to the ground. She looked over her shoulder and saw that her chains had punched through Akira's abdomen. She retracted them as she felt her own stomach try to and succeed in discharging its contents.

"Tsunami-chan!" she heard both her teammates yell.

"Make sure he can't hurt us," she managed to get out. "Stomach wounds don't kill immediately.

She saw Sakura move over and then say mechanically after a few moments, "I made sure he's dead."

Hinata knelt beside her. "Can you let me see your hand, Tsunami-chan?"

She gently took Tsuanmi's hand and examined it. Tsunami could not look.

"Sakura-chan," Hinata said, "can you get some bandages from our gear?"

"How bad is it, Hinata-chan?" Tsunami asked.

"I'm afraid that you lost most of your pinky finger, Tsunami-chan," she said.

Tsunami grimaced.

Sakura returned with bandages and a healing ointment that Hinata had made for everyone. Hinata wrapped the wounds.

"You've gone into shock, Tsunami-chan," she said. "You should lay down and rest until Kurenai-sensei returns."

"I'm so sorry, Tsunami-chan," Sakura said. "I should have been more alert."

Masami and Rika huddled near the coach, facing away from Tsunami.

Ten mintues later, Kurenai returned with the leader of the Iwa nin.

"Tsunami-chan!" Kurenai exclaimed. "What happned?"

"Akira caught me by surprise," Sakura admitted embarrassedly. "Tsunami-chan lost a finger rescuing me. She managed to incapacitate him in the process and I made sure that he was stopped, permanently."

"How come you she didn't let me know?" Kurenai asked.

"It happened too quickly and then she went into shock," Hinata explained.

"Yes, this is definitely Hidetsuchi, one of our chuunin-level missing nins," the Iwa kunoichi, Kurotsuchi, said.

She severed the head and burned the body. "I'll have his bounty sent for your genin. It's the least I can do for her getting maimed taking care of one of our problems."

With that, the Iwa kunoichi left.

"I know a limited amount of medical techniques," Kurenai said. "Let me make sure it heals cleanly."

Her hand glowed green as she held it near the bandages. The ache in Tsunami's hand damped down and the hot flashes she had experienced since the injury subsided.

* * *

They spent the rest of the day camped at the location.

As everyone was going to sleep, the thought of how the injury would affect her double life occurred to her. If Naruto had the same injury as Tsunami, it would be very suspicious. She waited until everyone except Kurenai, who was taking first watch, was asleep and then used her Disguise Technique to shift into her birth form.

Usually, this took relatively little chakra. This time it took quite a lot—as much as twenty Shadow Clones. Naruto looked at his hand. The wound was gone and he had his pinky back. He shifted back to Tsunami—which took the normal amount of chakra. Her hand remained healed!

She heaved a sigh of relief. Now she only had to think of an explanation!


	12. Chapter 11: Explanations

"Tsunami-chan?" Kurenai said softly. "I felt your chakra spike. Are you alright?"

"Yes," Tsunami said equally softly. "Let's move away a little bit so that we can talk."

The other two genin and their clients were asleep. Tsunami did not want to wake them. When they were at enough distance that they would have little chance of waking the others, Tsunami reached out her formerly-injured hand in the dark and grabbed Kurenai's hand with it.

Kurenai gasped. "Your finger grew back!"

"Not exactly," Naruto said. "It got restored when I changed to my other form—which took a lot more chakra than normal. I was worried that my other form would also be missing a finger."

"That's great, Tsunami-chan!" her teacher said. "I was worried when I couldn't find your finger. It must have gotten caught in the Iwa nin's fire technique."

"They can reattach fingers?" Tsunami asked.

"Yes," Kurenai answered. "If they aren't too damaged and proper care is taken. I can't do it, but I could have preserved your finger for when we got back to Konoha." She paused. "What are you going to tell the others?"

"I'll tell them it's a rare healing bloodline that pops up in Uzumakis sometimes," Tsunami said. "It's more or less true. From what I can tell, my mother could do the true transformation as well due to the Fox. I expect that I'll pass on the Fox to one of my descendants when I get too old, just like Mito-obasan did to Kaachan."

"Hmm, that could work," Kurenai said. "I would, however, keep the fact that it healed hidden from our client and her staff. It's better not to have any rumors floating around. You can tell Hinata-chan and Sakura-chan when we head back to Konoha."

"Alright, Kurenai-sensei," Tsunami responded.

"Head back to bed, Tsunami-chan," Kurenai directed. "Even with the unholy amount of stamina you have, this day has been really trying for you. Get some rest."

"Okay, Sensei," she responded, heading back to her sleeping mat.

* * *

A subdued group left the campsite the next morning. Tsunami waved off any concerns about her health. She followed Kurenai's advice and wrapped up her hand so that it was hard to tell that her finger had returned.

Luckily, they were able to make it to Takimitsukeru by evening. After a brief hesitation, Kurenai directed the genin to remain outside the Daimyo's palace while she met with the Daimyo and received the remainder of the payment due Konoha.

They spent the night in a hotel in the city. Kurenai signaled that they should remain quiet about the mission and its results before sending them to bed.

The next morning, they left Takimitsukeru at the distance-eating shinobi travel pace. After they had traveled for an hour, Kurenai had them slow to a walk.

"Normally, I would have had you meet the Daimyo with me," she said. "It would be a good experience for you—especially Hinata-chan and Tsunami-chan, based on their goals and backgrounds. However, I decided that Tsunami-chan's injury would raise too many questions."

"Wouldn't it have been advantageous to gain more sympathy, Sensei?" Sakura asked.

"Normally, that would be true, Sakura-chan," their teacher replied. "However, this time. . . Why don't you show them, Tsunami-chan?"

Tsunami nodded and unwrapped the bandage on her formerly injured hand.

"How!?" Sakura exclaimed.

"I healed it through a rare Uzumaki bloodline," Tsunami said. "Not all of us have it, but it shows up every generation or two."

Sakura slammed into her and hugged her fiercely. "I'm so glad that you didn't lose your finger because of me, Tsunami-chan."

Tsunami awkwardly returned the hug. At one time, she had had a small crush on the girl as Naruto, before her attitude and fangirlish behavior had turned him off. "It's okay, Sakura-chan," she said. "Even if I couldn't have healed it, I would have done it to save one of my friends."

Sakura nodded and blinked back tears as she released her.

"Does Naruto-kun have the bloodline too?" Hinata asked.

Hesitantly Tsunami nodded. "He does, which is unusual that we both have it. Our mom had it too, but before that the last person who had it was our mom's great-great-aunt. There's no guarantee that any of our kids would get it."

"Why hide the bloodline from Taki no Kuni?" Hinata asked. "I thought Konoha liked to showcase its bloodline abilities?"

"There's a balance between showcasing talent to increase Konoha's reputation and protecting our shinobi from assassination or kidnapping—especially rookie genin," Kurenai said. "In general, policy is to hide stuff like this until our shinobi are strong enough to fight in the Chuunin Exam Finals. Sometimes it can't be helped—such as when they are members of a prominent clan, but Hokage-sama was explicit in Tsunami-chan's case because she doesn't have clan members to help protect her."

The rest of the journey passed without incident. When they arrived in Konoha, they all reported the mission to the Hokage. After the basic report was finished, Kurenai dismissed Hinata and Sakura so that they could discuss Tsunami's "bloodline" under a privacy seal.

After listening to Tsunami describe how she had recovered her finger, the Hokage thoughtfully smoked his pipe. "What are the limitations of this, Tsunami-chan? Do you know?"

"I think the only limitations are being aware enough to transform and having enough chakra," she replied.

"Do you think you could tap into the Kyuubi's chakra to do it?" the Hokage asked.

Tsunami started. "I don't know. I've never actually used the Fox's chakra." She glanced at Kurenai and decided to be circumspect. Her sensei did not know about her mom's presence in her seal. "A feature of my seal kicked in when I was five and had enough chakra to support it. This feature buffers me from the Kyuubi's chakra and influence. This is why people like the Hyuuga and the Aburame haven't twigged to the fact that I as Tsunami am a jinchuuriki. The only reason they know that I as Naruto am a jinchuuriki is that they knew me before the feature took effect."

"There was actually a minor panic when that happened," the Hokage admitted. "Some of my shinobi were afraid you had released the Kyuubi."

"Huh," Tsunami said. "I hadn't realized."

"We didn't want to alarm you," he replied. "I had Jiraiya-kun check your seal while you were asleep."

The Hokage dismissed them and Tsunami returned to her apartment after stopping by Ramen Ichiraku for her fix. Kurenai had given them three days off to recover from the mission.

* * *

The next Wednesday, Naruto attended training with Kakashi's team. As was customary, Kakashi had them do taijutsu-only sparring. As usual, Sasuke beat the other three, although this time his match with Naruto was close. Naruto and Kiba split their matches and Shino lost all of his. By early afternoon, Kakashi ended the training. Kiba and Shino both excused themselves to go do some clan training.

"You want to go again, Dead Last?" Sasuke asked after they were the only ones left.

"Sure, Jerk," Naruto responded.

Kakashi had made them promise that any extracurricular sparring they did would be taijutsu-only. He had explained that using weapons or ninjutsu while sparring unsupervised was a recipe for disaster. Naruto and the others suspected that was why most of the sparring they did in team training was taijutsu-only as well. Kakashi was too lazy to supervise them closely.

Naruto managed to eke out a win against Sasuke by outlasting him.

Sasuke lay on his back, panting, to recover. Naruto lay down next to him in order to relax.

"How were you Dead Last in the Academy?" Sasuke asked.

"You remember how I said that Mizuki sabotaged my final exam?" Naruto said. "He also sabotaged my other tests and classwork. He wasn't the only one either—the teacher I had before Iruka-sensei did it too. I'm actually as good as my sister—she's a little better in taijutsu, but I'm tougher. I probably would have graduated just slightly behind her at number five if it weren't for Mizuki and others like him."

"Why would they do that?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto hesitated. Sasuke was becoming a friend of sorts—a friendly rival, at least. The Hokage had told him he could tell others about the Kyuubi if he trusted them, but he hesitated.

Finally, he answered, "I inherited a weapon—a very powerful weapon. Hokage-jiichan tells me it belonged to my mother before me, but he won't tell me any details because he says that if I let others know, it could be a danger to myself and Konoha. The weapon is very powerful and dangerous, but can only be safely handled by Uzumaki. There was a leak when I was a few days old that let many of the adults in the village know that I had the weapon. Most of the shinobi in the village are a little wary of me because of the weapon, but they mostly treat me alright. The civilians, on the other hand, are freaked out because of some accidents that happened with the weapon in the past. They treat me like a burning explosive note about to go off. They think that if I don't become a shinobi that the weapon will be less likely to be deployed. Some shinobi are of the same opinion. Unfortunately, most of those seem to be at the Academy. Ever hear the expression, 'Those that can't do, teach?' There's a certain amount of truth to that. The weapon is utilized via a seal and that isn't a topic you need to know in order to teach at the Academy, so I don't think that many of the instructors there understand it."

Sasuke grunted. "People are stupid." After a brief pause, he asked. "So only an Uzumaki can control it? You can't duplicate it?"

"Jiichan said that only an Uzumaki can hold it long term. It would be detrimental for anyone else to try. It _is_ one of a kind. I wouldn't know where to begin to duplicate it and would be _very_ hesitant to try. To tell you the truth, I don't even know how to use it. It's so destructive I'm hesitant to try and figure it out."

Sasuke grunted.

"You looking for an advantage against your brother?" Naruto asked.

Sasuke grunted in agreement. After a few moments, he asked, "How did you know about that?"

"Kiba-kun told me about your response during team introductions," Naruto responded. "It wasn't hard to figure out who the man you wanted to kill was."

Sasuke grunted again.

Naruto had an evil thought. "He also said you wanted to rebuild your clan. Why haven't you gotten started at that?" He paused and then went in for the kill. "Most of the boys in class were convinced you were gay—seeing as how you ignored all the girls that were after you."

"I'm not!" Sasuke protested. "Most of the girls in class weren't worthy of pursuit."

Naruto laughed loudly.

Sasuke smirked. "The only one in our class I would consider is your sister. She and Hinata-san are the only ones that aren't worthless fangirls and Hinata-san is too shy and insecure."

Naruto stopped laughing. His dual life had left him unsure of how he felt about dating, but the idea of dating Sasuke as Tsunami turned his stomach.

Sasuke waved away his incipient protest with a grunt and said, "Don't worry about me chasing your sister or bringing down the wrath of the fangirls upon her."

Naruto interrupted him to say, "Tsunami-chan can easily handle any and all of the fangirls."

Sasuke grunted in affirmation before continuing. "I'm still too young to be thinking too seriously about dating and what comes after—too much can happen between now and when I would get married. Besides, any girl I attach myself to is likely to become a target for Itachi."

Naruto grunted in response.

* * *

The day after training with Team Kakashi, Team Kurenai resumed their normal training/mission schedule. After a week of D-rank missions, Kurenai said they were ready for their second C-rank. Kakashi had taken his squad on their first C-rank the previous day, so Tsunami did not even have to think of a way to get her as Naruto out of the next training with them.


	13. Chapter 12: Shinobi Life

Their second C-rank mission was to deliver a scroll to a Konoha outpost on the border between Kawa no Kuni and Hi no Kuni. The trip to the outpost was short—two days at a jog.

At the end of the first day on the road after camp was set up, Sakura subjected the other two genin to another sermon on why Sasuke was so great.

"Sakura-chan," Tsunami interrupted her, "did you know that my brother has become a friend of Sasuke-san?"

"What!?" Sakura exclaimed. "There's no way an idiot like your brother is friends with Sasuke-kun!"

"Sakura-chan!" Tsunami snapped, irritated with the way her friend always talked about her other half.

Sakura chuckled nervously. "Sorry, Tsunami-chan. Your brother is just so irritating with his pranks and boasting."

Tsunami huffed. "Anyway, Sasuke-san and my brother actually have a fair amount in common; they're both orphans with lonely childhoods who spend a lot of time training to cope. It's somewhat natural they would be friends. Naruto-kun has been training with Sasuke-san's team once a week by invitation of their sensei."

"What!?" Sakura exclaimed. "Why?"

"Kaksahi-sensei said that Naruto-kun was originally supposed to be on his team until he was sabotaged into failing the original genin exam and decided to go into the Reserves. Kakashi-sensei must have felt bad about it."

"He was sabatoged? He's in the Reserves?" Sakura asked, confused.

"Yes," Tsunami answered, irritated. "You know he's about as good as I am. Did you really think he failed a legitimate test?"

"But he was the dead last!" Sakura said.

"It wasn't just the final exam that was sabotaged!" Tsunami snapped. With how smart Sakura was, her decided lack of observational skills was annoying.

Sakura looked at her blankly.

"You remember what we talked about when my whisker marks came out?" Tsunami asked. "Most of the village dislikes Naruto-kun because of that and there are a substantial number that outright hate him. Mizuki- _sensei_ and a few of the other teachers were like that."

"That's idiotic!" Sakura said. "Even if the Kyuubi wasn't dead and he _was_ the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi, treating him poorly because of that could have a serious backlash on the village."

Tsunami froze up. She felt the blood drain from her face.

"Wait!?" Sakura said. "He is? Is that what the marks are from?" She looked at Tsunami a little nervously. Tsunami supposed that defending a jinchuuriki in abstract was easier than doing it in person. Hinata was watching the two of them with even wider eyes than normal.

Tsunami struggled to get control of herself after having one of her darkest secrets discovered by one of her friends. "Not exactly," she finally said. "Our mother was the Kyuubi's second jinchuuriki. _That_ is why we have the marks."

"Second?" Sakura asked curiously.

"Uzumaki Mito-sama, the wife of the Shodai Hokage, was the first," Tsunami said.

"I'm surprised that I haven't seen the signs of Naruto-kun being a jinchuuriki," Hinata said. "We Hyuuga are taught to see them."

"The Kyuubi is buried so deeply in Naruto-kun's seal that nobody has seen a trace of it since he was five," Tsunami answered. "He's never drawn on its power and isn't really even sure how to do so. Hokage-jiichan thinks he could if he were in a life-threatening situation. Does this change how you feel about him?" she asked both her teammates, but her gaze lingered on Hinata.

"I guess not," Sakura said, chuckling nervously. "He's still a goof—he's just a goof with a massive amount of power on his hands. . ." she trailed off nervously.

Tsunami rolled her eyes. "When has Naruto-kun ever played a truly dangerous or malicious prank? He's even stopped pranking altogether since graduation."

"Really?" asked Sakura.

Tsunami nodded firmly. "He's trying to be a respectable seal master."

"I think the way that Naruto-kun has handled the challenges he's been handed is admirable," Hinata said firmly. She was still looking down at the ground, but her stuttering had been absent for once.

"How did the Kyuubi get released from your mother?" Sakura asked.

"The seal on a female jinchuuriki often weakens during birth," Tsunami said sadly. "The village leaders knew this and made preparations to combat the weakness, but a masked man interfered and released the Kyuubi. Both our parents died as a result of the attack and Yondaime-sama was forced to seal the beast into Naruto-kun at the cost of his life."

"And you don't know who did this?" Hinata asked.

Tsunami shook her head.

Kurenai spoke for the first time. Tsunami had forgotten she was nearby. "What you have stumbled onto is an S-rank secret. Hokage-sama has forbidden spreading the fact that Naruto-san is a jinchuuriki on pain of death."

"But, Kurenai-sensei, Tsunami-chan says that everyone already knows!" Sakura protested.

"It's true that most of the adults know," Kurenai admitted, "but Hokage-sama wanted Naruto-kun to have a normal life and be able to grow up without prejudice. It hasn't exactly worked as he intended, but the decree still exists. Do you understand, Sakura-chan, Hinata-chan?"

"I understand, Sensei," both girls said.

Everyone was quiet for a few minutes. Tsunami was uncomfortable with the silence, so she decided to bring up the topic she was going to talk to Sakura about before they got side tracked. "I was going to tell you, Sakura-chan, that Naruto-kun has talked to Sasuke-san a fair amount since graduation. One of the things that Sasuke-san told my brother is that he despises weak fangirls and will only marry a strong kunoichi."

"You want Sasuke-kun for yourself!" Sakura accused angrily.

Tsunami rolled her eyes. "There is zero chance that I would marry Sasuke."

Sakura narrowed her eyes. "I don't believe you! Sasuke-kun is perfect! There's no way you don't secretly like him!"

Tsunami huffed and Hinata shook her head.

"He's not perfect," Tsunami asserted, "but even if he was, I couldn't marry him."

"Why not?" Sakura said suspiciously.

Tsunmai sighed. "He's the last of the Uchiha and Naruto-kun and I are the last of the Uzumaki, as far as we know. Any husband I take would be required to marry into the Uzumaki clan and Sasuke-san would never be willing to do so. The reverse is true as well." She had thought about this a lot since Sasuke's last conversation with her as Naruto about girls.

The other reason is that she had decided that she could not risk getting pregnant so that what happened to her mother could not happen to her. The decision left her with an odd pang of regret. Before the talk with Sasuke, she had purposely avoided thinking about sex since her mother had given her _the talk_ when she turned ten. Now the thought of having sex as a girl filled her with a sense of vulnerability and disgust (and, if she were honest with herself, a small amount of curiosity), but somehow the thought of not carrying a baby inside her left her strangely empty and lacking.

"Is that what happened to your father?" Hinata asked. "He married into the Uzumaki?"

"Not exactly," Tsunami admitted. "Circumstances did not allow him to take her name, but they had agreed that all of their children would be Uzumaki." Her parents' marriage was secret, so her father could not take the Uzumaki name publicly. While the Namikaze were not a shinobi clan, Namikaze Minato was a famous shinobi name. It was unlikely that her father would have changed his name even after the marriage was known.

"So Sasuke-kun wants a strong kunoichi as a wife?" Sakura asked tentatively.

Tsunami nodded. "While I suppose he wouldn't go for an ugly woman, he finds strength more attractive than any civilian concept of beauty. _I_ think you shouldn't worry about trying to impress him at this point in your life, but if you really can't leave it alone, the best thing you can do is train hard and become a superior kunoichi."

Sakura nodded thoughtfully before a more comfortable silence than before enveloped the camp.

* * *

The drop off of the scroll at the outpost went off without a hitch. However, on the way back Tsunami and her team ran into a roadblock manned by three bandits. Tsunami's clones had warned them that they were there as well as the ones hiding in the forest. Kurenai had elected to spring their trap. One of them, probably the leader, held a sword. The other two carried spiked clubs.

"What do we have here?" the bandit with the sword said. "Three little girls and a big girl playing at being ninja?"

"Girls," said Kurenai, repeating what she had told them earlier for the bandits benefit. "Most of our missions until you reach chuunin will be clearing out bandits like this. I want you to take the lead on this. I'll back you up."

"I think the older one is scared!" said one of the others.

"Hardly," said Kurenai.

"Feisty," said the third. "I call dibs on her."

"I want the redhead," said the second.

"No way did you just say that!" snarled Tsunami.

Hinata started to tremble beside her.

Tsunami put a steadying hand on her shoulder. "These guys are chumps, Hinata-chan. You don't have any reason to be nervous."

The one with the sword said, "If you really are ninja, just the three of us might have trouble with you, but unlucky for you, we're not alone."

He whistled and the thirteen men Tsunami knew were hiding came out of the forest.

"That's it?!" Tsunami complained for effect. "I can handle twice your number by myself!"

"Calm down, Tsunami-chan," Kurenai said, grinning slightly. "I want you to take care of the new ones and make sure none of them escape. Hinata-chan, I want you to handle the leaders. Sakura-chan, I want you to back up Hinata-chan and make sure that she doesn't get overwhelmed."

All three girls voiced their acknowledgement.

"Shadow Clone Technique!" Tsunami called. Even though she did not need to call the name of the technique, she thought doing so added to the intimidation effect. She summoned 45 clones which would allow three clones per bandit and leave a few for overwatch. This was probably more than she needed, but figured it was better safe than sorry.

She kept herself out of the main fight, only darting in twice when bandits got lucky against her clones. She and her clones were rough with them. Some of them were likely to have bad concussions, but they were rapists and associates of rapists, so she did not feel bad.

When it was all said and done, Naruto had ended up killing two of the bandits with blows that snapped their necks. Of the remaining 11 that she had fought, another two appeared to be in comas. She was a little disconcerted, but it was not as violent or bloody as what had happened on the Taki trip with the false tutor. Hinata had disabled two of hers, including the leader, using the Gentle Fist. Sakura had ended up killing the third with a kunai to the throat. Sakura was kneeling on the ground and had vomited. Kurenai was currently comforting her.

Several of the bandits were screaming or moaning in pain. Tsunami dug some paralyzation seals out of her supplies and applied them to all of the surviving bandits.

When Sakura had recovered enough, Kurenai said, "We need to find their camp and make sure there aren't any more of them. Hinata-chan, is it in range?"

Hinata activated her Byakugan. "It's not, Kurenai-sensei."

Kurenai nodded in acknowledgement. "Tsunami-chan, send out six or eight scouting clones in all directions. Have them use your sensing technique and move carefully enough that they won't be spotted first."

"Okay, Sensei," Tsunami said. She wordlessly formed eight Shadow Clones and sent them out.

Fifteen minutes later she received the memories of a clone two kilometers to the northwest. Her Mind's Eye Technique had told her that there were three bandits. The clone had snuck close enough to verify that it was definitely the bandit camp.

"There are three bandits at the camp. It's about two kilometers to the northwest," she relayed to her team.

Kurenai had Tsunami leave Shadow Clone guards over their prisoners and the team went to the camp.

As they approached, Kurenai said, "Hinata-chan, can you verify three bandits?"

After activating her doujutsu, Hinata said, "Yes, Kurenai-sensei, there are three. Two are sitting around a campfire and one is asleep in a tent."

"Tsunami-chan," Kurenai said, "I want you to disable the one in the tent with a seal, if you can, while the rest of us confront the two that are awake. If he wakes up handle him however you see fit."

"Okay, Sensei," she replied.

As Tsunami snuck around to the tent where she felt the bandit using her Mind's Eye, she heard Kurenai announce their presence, "We are shinobi from Konohagakure no Sato and are exercising our treaty obligations with the Daimyo of Hi no Kuni to arrest you for suspected banditry. Throw down your weapons and submit to a search of your camp. If evidence is found of banditry, you will be transported to the nearest magistrate to stand trial. If you resist, we are authorized and willing to exercise lethal force. We have already dispatched those who we believe to be your comrades in crime."

One of the two called out something vulgar and Tsunami heard the sounds of a brief scuffle. The man in the tent was oblivious to it all and she slapped a paralyzation seal on him and activated it.

A brief search of the camp confirmed that they were bandits who killed and raped and were likely involved in some occasional human trafficking. Tsunami sealed the evidence into storage seals and used Shadow Clones to create enough prisoner scrolls to transport the bandits. Kurenai admitted that the usual practice was to kill bandits, especially those caught in murder, rape, or human trafficking, but said that she did not think that the genin were ready to execute prisoners yet.

They were a day late returning to Konoha, but not late enough to worry anyone, due to dealing with the bandits and dropping them off at the closest village. Tsunami suspected that they would receive a very speedy trial and execution as the village had not appeared to have the facilities to hold that many bandits. When Sakura had asked why they did not take them all to Konoha for trial, Kurenai explained that the nearest village was likely their primary victims and deserved to decide their fate.

* * *

Naruto continued to train as Tsunami with her team, but most of his progress still occurred in his mindscape, training under his mother. His main training focus was fuuinjutsu and the Chakra Seal Manifestation Technique. He was able to use Chakra Seal Manifestation to create a simple seal with his palm or fingertips that lasted up to two minutes.

"Excellent work, Son," his mother said as an explosive seal he had left on a post in their training meadow blew up after holding it for almost two minutes. "Your work in fuuinjutsu has also advanced enough so that I can show you the seal for the Adamantine Sealing Chains."

"Awesome!" he shouted.

His mother smiled indulgently at him. "I want you to keep working on the Chakra Seal Manifestation. Your next goals should be to be able to hold five seals active and to be able to manifest the chakra for them from your feet."

Naruto groaned good naturedly.

She smirked. "Just wait until you have to manifest them from the tips of your Adamantine Attacking Chains."

He groaned not so good naturedly.

* * *

Kurenai had given them a few days off to recover from the bandit encounter. After that it was more D-ranks. When Tsunami started agitating for another C-rank, Kurenai put her off.

"What?" Tsunami complained. "You know we can handle it, Kurenai-sensei!"

"I was considering nominating you three for the Chuunin Exams," Kurenai said idly, "but if you'd rather do C-ranks instead. . ."

"No way, Sensei," Tsunami said. "Bring on the Chuunin Exams! Right, girls?"

"Do you think Sasuke-kun will be there?" Sakura asked.

Tsunami glared at her while Kurenai frowned.

Sakura chuckled nervously. "I didn't mean it like that! I would only take the Exams if I thought I was ready, not just to see him. I was just curious is all."

"Do you really think we're ready, Kurenai-sensei?" Hinata asked.

"I think you're ready to compete," Kurenai said. "Very few pass on their first try and it is somewhat dangerous. However, I'm confident that you can handle the dangers and put in a good showing. The choice is up to each of you, but I will be nominating you so that if you want to do so, you can participate. The Exams _are_ good training and a good chance to see how you measure up to your peers."

"Thanks, Sensei!" Tsunami said.

* * *

A few days later, Team Seven returned from their C-rank mission. Sasuke sought out Naruto to talk to him about it. Naruto's long-term Shadow Clone was able to make excuses to put it off until Naruto could talk to him in person.

"Say goodbye to your lucky wins in team spars, Naruto-san!" Sasuke boasted, showing off red eyes with single tomoes swirling around their shrunken pupils.

Naruto smirked. "Congrats on the Sharingan. You _do_ realize that 90% of the spars Kakashi-sensei has us do are 'taijutsu only' because he's too lazy to properly spot for us, right? He's just going to tell you to turn them off."

Sasuke grunted. "You don't know the half of it," he complained. "Most of the time when you aren't there he has us doing only pointless team-building exercises."

"So what has he actually taught you?" Naruto asked curiously.

Sasuke grunted again. "Besides a little coaching in taijutsu and some communication skills, the first thing he taught us was tree walking—which he only taught us during our last mission because we were facing an A-rank missing nin."

"What!? Really?" Naruto exclaimed.

Sasuke proceeded to tell him about their near-disastrous mission to Nami no Kuni to protect a bridge builder.

After he was done, Naruto said, "Man, you guys are lucky. That mission could have gone wrong in so many ways."

Sasuke frowned. "As much as I hate to admit it, that's true. At once point, I thought I was dying even though I had gained the Sharingan by that point. I even passed on my mission of vengeance to Kiba-san, only to find out later that the idiot mutt had succumbed moments after me. We were lucky that by that time Kakashi-sensei was about to finish off Zabuza or else he would have been in a rough spot." He turned to Naruto and said, "If I ever do die on a mission, I want you to be the one to go after Itachi and kill him."

"Me?" Naurto asked, shocked. "Why me? What about Kiba-kun and Shino-kun?"

"Because I know you'll never give up on your promise," Sasuke said seriously. "You also understand what he did to me better than anyone else."

"Okay, Sasuke-kun," Naruto said. "I promise I'll hunt down Itachi if you die—but I'll do it _my_ way." Naruto smirked.

Sasuke grunted. "I wouldn't expect you to do things the _normal_ way, Dead Last."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** The Wave mission went down mostly as is did in canon with the team's greater skill making up for Naruto's luck. Shino's bugs rescued Kakashi from the Water Prison Technique. Kiba dressed down Inari on Sasuke's behalf after Sasuke stormed out. Sasuke's meeting with Haku was superficially different than Naruto's due to his prickly personality and greater awareness, but Haku had an effect on him. Sasuke rescued Tsunami and Inari from the thugs and arrived at the bridge late. He thought he could take the fake Hunter who was fighting Kiba while Shino guarded Tazuna and entered the Ice Mirror trap. He activated the Sharingan before taking an attack meant for Kiba, who went down not long after. Haku arrived at Kakashi and Zabuza's fight in time to take the Rakiri meant for Zabuza. Gato arrived and the rest is similar to canon with Zabuza taking him out and dying shortly thereafter.


	14. Chapter 13: The Calm before the Storm

Three days before the Chuunin Exams were scheduled to begin at the end of team practice, Kurenai said, "Girls, I want you to know that I'm proud of your progress. The day after tomorrow is the day of the official nominations for the Chuunin Exams."

"Why are the nominations so close to the day of the Exams, Sensei?" Sakura asked. "Shouldn't teams be given more time to prepare?"

Kurenai shrugged. "It's tradition for when the Exams are in Konoha for sensei to spring it on their students. Not every sensei does and some genin are aware enough or connected enough to know anyway. I, personally, think the tradition is silly and a little dangerous, but it started with Shodai-sama back when the Exams were Konoha only. I, obviously, am not following the tradition."

She looked at her students and said, "I want you to take the next two days easy. You'll do better if you're relaxed and rested going into the Exam than if you train up until the last minute. We'll meet briefly after the nomination meeting at one o'clock. If I'm late, don't worry about it; it will be because Hatake-san passed a team this year."

"Why would that matter?" Hinata asked.

"Hatake Kakashi-san is late to nearly everything," Tsunami said. "My brother trains with his team once a week at Kakashi-san's invitation. He's usually an hour late to those practices and Kiba-san says that means he likes my brother because he's usually two or three hours late."

"He'd be late to a meeting with Hokage-sama and all those other jounin?" asked Sakura, scandalized. She paled and then exclaimed, "And he's Sasuke-kun's sensei!?"

"He's probably the most talented jounin that Konoha currently has active," said Kurenai. "That gives him some leeway." She shrugged again. "Enough about Hatake-san and his bad habits. Enjoy tomorrow. Do something fun and then spend the next morning thinking about whether you want to participate in the Exams. If you decide not to, that's fine—most genin don't participate the first time they're eligible."

"We're not most genin, Kurenai-sensei!" Tsunami exclaimed.

Kurenai excused herself. Tsunami prepared to say goodbye to her teammates. She was looking forward to spending some time as Naruto over the next couple of days. With training and missions she felt she did not have enough time to spend as what she still thought of as her "natural self." She did not really mind being Tsunami, especially since it allowed her to avoid most of the villager's animosity and she did not have to worry about her career being sabotaged as much, but. . .

Her thoughts were interrupted by Sakura saying, "We should do something together tomorrow."

Tsunami absently said, "Kurenai-sensei asked us not to train the until the Exams."

"No, silly," Sakura said. "We should do something fun together."

Tsunami frowned. She found training fun. Even her relaxation plans for tomorrow involved reading some fuuinjutsu scrolls.

Sakura snorted. "I never thought I'd say this in a million years, Tsunami-chan, but you should be more like your brother sometimes. You're always so serious and you've gotten more and more serious in the two years I've known you."

Tsunami was shocked. Was her Tsunami personality that different than her Naruto one? What Sakura did not know was that the Naruto that she was talking about was also a mask that she had used to get attention and push her limits. Sakura also did not know that Naruto acted a lot more professional when he was out in public now for the sake of his fuuinjutsu business. The only time he really pranked anyone or acted juvenile anymore was when Konohamaru tracked him down. Although she admitted that occasionally he placed himself so that the boy could find him on purpose. Who was the "real" Naruto? Did such a person exist? She decided that she was the most "real" when she was with her mother in her mindscape. What did that say about her that she really only showed herself to a person that was not even really alive anymore?

"Shocking, I know," Sakura said with a smirk. "Please don't tell him I said it. What do you say, Tsunami-chan, Hinata-chan?"

"I'd like that, Sakura-chan," Hinata said quietly, pushing her fingers together. The shy girl did not stutter as much as she used to, unless the topic of Tsunami's "brother" came up, but she still exhibited a number of nervous habits.

Tsunami realized that Hinata as the "failed heiress of the Hyuuga" probably did not have any peers she could interact with as friends other than her teammates. While she somewhat dreaded whatever girly thing Sakura thought would be fun, she did want to spend some time with her friends and also did not want to take this chance away from Hinata. She decided to agree, but give herself an out. She even pushed down the temptation to send her long-term clone.

"Okay," Tsunami answered. "I wanted to spend some time with my brother, but I'd like to spend some time with you girls too."

* * *

When the girls met up the next morning, Sakura suggested that they go shopping for outfits.

"I don't need any new outfits," Tsunami protested. "What I have suits me fine."

"You're such a tomboy, Tsunami-chan," Sakura said. "I've only ever seen you wear shinobi-style clothes.

Tsunami shrugged. "It's not like I ever get invited to social events. My kunoichi clothes were fine for visiting you or Ino-chan."

"Don't you ever want to dress up or impress someone?" Sakura asked.

The redhead snorted. "Who am I going to impress? Naruto-kun?"

"Isn't there someone you want to catch the notice of?" Sakura pressed.

"Aren't shinobi supposed to go unnoticed?" Tsunami responded, confused.

After a moment, she realized that Sakura was probing to see if she liked someone romantically. The truth was that the thought of becoming involved with a boy freaked her out and the thought of becoming involved with a girl as Tsunami confused her. Girls stayed away from Naruto and she was too proud to go after anyone that hated her male self blindly or gave into peer pressure that easily. That only left Hinata, whom she had already dismissed as a current option because of the likelihood of that earning her the Caged Bird Seal and the fact that Kurenai would demand that she reveal her secret dual identity—and she was totally against that for now. Being that she was not quite thirteen, she was fine with avoiding romantic entanglements for now. Sakura, however, did not see it that way, so Tsunami always played dumb when Sakura tried to get her to spill about her nonexistent romantic feelings. It helped that Tsunami actually was somewhat dense about the subject.

Sakura rolled her eyes and grabbed Tsunami's hand. "Come on," she said. "It'll be fun!"

"Okay," the redhead whined, "but I have the right to veto anything with too much lace or too many bows."

Hinata giggled as she followed her more outgoing teammates.

To her surprise, Tsunami did have fun. She and Sakura ganged up on Hinata to convince the shy girl to try on something a little "more fun" than her normal conservative outfits. Then the other two had ganged up on Tsunami to get her to try on the frilliest, girliest dress they could find. Both girls let themselves be convinced. Hinata was easier than the stubborn Uzumaki; they finally did it by appealing to the redhead's pride with a bit of reverse psychology. Tsunami could tell that Hinata really wanted to try on the outfit they had picked out, but thought it would not be "proper."

Tsunami looked down at the pink monstrosity she was wearing. "I can't believe you talked me into this."

"Part of the fun is wearing something you normally wouldn't," Sakura said.

"Oh?" said Tsunami with a wide grin. "I have the perfect thing for you to try on then."

The pink-haired girl gulped. "When I said that you should be more like your brother, Tsunami-chan, I didn't mean right now."

"Ah, ah, Sakura-chan," she scolded. "No backing out."

She ran and found a bright orange track suit that she had seen earlier. It was not quite the same as she used to wear as a boy, but it was close.

"This is for all the times I bad-mouthed your brother, isn't it?" Sakura said with a grimace.

"While he is partial to orange, most stores wouldn't sell him anything else," Tsunami said. She grinned. "I could look for some spandex. . ."

"Fine, fine," Sakura said with a groan. "You got me."

After Sakura had changed, they all stood next to each other.

"I think Hinata-chan got off easy," Tsunami said.

The dark-haired girl was wearing a form-flattering, but still modest "little black dress."

Hinata's eyes widened and she started pressing her fingers together.

"Ah, cut her some slack, Nami-chan," said Sakura.

Tsunami raised an eyebrow. While they were friends, they had never been that informal.

"You don't mind, do you?" Sakura asked.

Tsunami had never much cared for formality. "I don't mind—if I can call you Kura-chan."

The two of them turned to look at Hinata. "You can call me Nata-chan," she said shyly.

"Great!" Tsunami said. "We spend too much time together to be worried about full names."

Sakura nodded in agreement.

After that they tried on clothes that they each actually liked. Tsunami caught sight of a bored young man waiting for who she assumed was his girlfriend. She gave him a mental salute in commiseration. Participating was much more fun than just waiting around.

After about an hour they bought some things to thank the store for allowing them to monopolize some of their dressing rooms for so long. They had ended up buying matching sun dresses in red, green, and lavender. It was the first dress that Tsunami had ever owned, but she admitted that it looked good on her. Hinata was pretty nervous about hers, since it was so different than her normal wear.

"It'll be fine, Nata-chan," Sakura said. "You don't have to wear it in public if you don't want to."

After that, Tsunami insisted that they go look at some shinobi equipment stores. She took them to Higurashi's store first. The girls split up to do some browsing. After about 15 minutes, Sakura called out to her. When Tsunami went to where she was looking, she saw that she was looking at the "Uzumaki Fuuinjustu" display. Hinata approached them too.

"Are these yours?" Sakura asked.

"A couple of them might still be," the redhead said. "We split the task of making them before graduation. Naruto-kun does them all now."

"He really is smarter than everyone gave him credit for," Sakura said.

"Told you," Tsunami said smugly.

"I always new there was more to Naruto-kun," Hinata said quietly and then blushed when the other two looked at her.

After they had browsed at a few more stores, including a kunoichi specialty store, Tsunami said, "I'm going to meet Naruto-kun at Ramen Ichiraku for lunch. You two are welcome to come with me."

Sakura was subjected to puppy-dog eyes from Hinata, begging her to come. The pink-haired girl rolled her eyes but acquiesced.

Tsunami Replaced herself with a hidden Shadow Clone as they approached the store and then used her special Disguise Technique to change to her birth form. He then switched with his long-term clone who was approaching. He formed and dispelled a clone so that the his other clones would know what was going on. Since the Exams were bound to last multiple days, he wanted some time as Naruto. He had done this for their last C-rank since Kurenai had given them warning.

The long-term clone then Disguised into Tsunami and left to wait for an opportune time to switch with the Tsunami Shadow Clone that was with the others.

Naruto walked up to the stand and greeted his "sister" and her teammates. The clone returned his greeting. Sakura greeted him far more pleasantly than she usually did his male self—although it still was not overly friendly. Hinata ducked her head bashfully.

"Old Man!" Naruto called. "Two miso ramen to start!"

"Oy!" Teuchi called back. "How's my favorite customer?"

"I thought I was your favorite customer," the Tsunami clone said with a pout.

"Sorry, Tsunami-chan," the ramen vendor said with a grin. "You _are_ a favorite, but you've only been coming here for two years."

"Did I hear my favorite pair of twins?" Ayame said as she came out from the back.

"Hi, Ayame-neechan!" Naruto and his clone said in unison.

Sakura shuddered. "I wish you wouldn't do that. I don't need to be reminded of how close in personality you too really are."

"But Kura-chan," the clone said, "you said. . ."

Sakura clamped a hand over the clone's mouth and glared at her. "You going to be good?" she asked after a moment. The clone nodded and Sakura released her.

"What's going on?" Naruto asked.

Hinata pressed her fingers together and said with a slight stutter, "Since we didn't have to train or do missions today, Tsunami-chan's prankster personality has come out more than normal."

Naruto grinned widely. The Tsunami clone joined him with her own grin.

"When both of them get going. . ." Teuchi shuddered exageratedly.

"No," Sakura said firmly.

The clone pouted. "But. . ."

"No," the pink-haired girl repeated. "A small amount is fine, but when both of you get going. . ."

The Uzumaki "twins" smirked.

The girls ordered and a few minutes later Ayame brought out their orders.

As Naruto was finishing up, he heard Konohamaru shout, "Boss!"

He turned and saw Konahamaru approach with his two friends. "Boss! We've been looking for you for days!"

Naruto's long-term clone rarely left their apartment unless he was delivering seals, so this was not a surprise.

"What for?" he asked.

"We want you to play ninja with us!" the Hokage's grandson exclaimed.

Sakura laughed mockingly. "Even a reserve shinobi has better things to do than play ninja with a bunch of kids."

"Hey, Boss, is she your girlfriend?" Konohamaru asked with a too-innocent expression on his face.

"Nah," Naruto said. "She's my sister's teammate."

Konohamaru wiped his forehead in mock relief. "Phew. She's too vicious and her forehead. . ."

"Too vicious!?" Sakura repeated, outraged. "I'll show you too vicious!"

"Kono-kun? Run!" Naruto commanded.

Konohamaru squealed and took off with his friends and Sakura in hot pursuit.

"We better follow and make sure she doesn't do anything rash to him," Naruto said, slapping some money down on the bar. Hinata did likewise and Naruto figured that Sakura could pay Tsunami back later.

His clone nodded and the two of them plus Hinata followed after the others at a jog. They caught up to see a Suna shinobi holding Konohamaru by his shirt. Moegi and Udon were cowering behind Sakura.

"Brat!" said the Suna nin. "I'll teach you to watch were you're going." He was wearing a black outfit with his Sand Badge attached to a hood with cat ears. He was wearing purple kabuki makeup and had a large bandage-wrapped object on his back.

"Let him go, Kankurou-kun," said his bored-looking companion. She had her blonde hair in 4 ponytails and had a large folded fan on her back. "He isn't worth the trouble."

"I'd listen to your obviously smarter companion, Makeup Boy," Naruto said. He could not stand bullies.

"It's warpaint, Shrimp," Kankurou snarled. "What are you going to do about it? You don't even have a shinobi badge." He started to remove his bundle.

"Really, Kankurou-kun?" the blonde said incredulously. "You're using that over this?"

"Quiet, Temari-chan," he said. "I hate nosy punks like him."

"Then you're going to hate it even more when ANBU arrests you and kicks the rest of your delegation out of Konoha for picking a fight with the Hokage's eight-year-old grandson," Naruto said with a smirk, "but I'm sure that they will have forgotten about losing out on the Chuunin Exams before they even began by the time you finally get out of jail in a few years."

Temari whacked her companion in the back of the head. "Can you not be an idiot for once, Otouto-chan?"

"How was I supposed to know?" he whined.

"You need a reason not to beat up eight year olds?" Naruto taunted.

By this time a presence that Naruto had noticed in a nearby tree began to leak killing intent. He did not recognize the presence, so he assumed the person was with Temari and Kankurou. There was something "caustic" about the presence and there was a sinister echo to the person's chakra.

The presence appeared in front of the Suna shinobi with a sand-customized Body Flicker. "Kakurou, you're a disgrace," the figure said. "Shut up before I kill you."

"Yes, Gaara-san," Kankurou said with an edge of fear in his voice. Gaara was a boy about Naruto's age. He had red hair and the kanji for "love" tattooed above his left eye. A tan-colored gourd was strapped to his back. He glanced over the Konoha group and then dismissed them.

"Kankurou, Temari, we're leaving there's nothing for us here," he said as he started to walk away. The other two followed him.

Naruto let out the breath he had not realized he had been holding. "I want you girls to be careful if you run into them in the Exams," he said. "I'm not too worried about Makeup Boy and Fan Girl, but Gourd-san. . ." He paused. "He felt of death and bloodlust. His chakra was very strong and there was something wrong with it."

"I know what you mean," his clone said.

Naruto reached over to where Konohamaru had been cowering behind him and ruffled the boy's hair. "Sorry, Kono-kun," he said. "I'd like to play with you, but my sister will be unavailable for a few days because of the Exams, so I want to spend some time with her. I'll play with you while she's busy." Naruto felt a little guilty about ditching the boy, but he wanted to relax before the Exams and his Tsunami side's teammates were expecting her to spend the rest of the day with him.

The boy and his friends pouted briefly before running off. Hinata and Sakura excused themselves too.


	15. Chapter 14: Impossible Questions

Naruto stood just off the porch of the house in his mindscape that his mother lived in. He was reluctant to enter. All the previous night he could tell that his mom knew there was something wrong with him, but he had blown off her inquiries. From experience, he knew that she would not put up with it again. He had hoped that he would make progress in figuring out what was bothering him, but, if anything, the day's events had solidified his worries.

His mother appeared in the doorway. "Come in, Sweetie, and tell me what's bothering you," she said in a kind, but no-nonsense manner.

He sighed and followed her in. She gestured to a couch while she went into the kitchen. In hardly any time, she returned with tea. One advantage of his mindscape was that they could summon anything, including food and drink. The food and drink did not actually do anything for them—his mom did not actually need to eat—but it was comforting at times, and it _did_ taste good.

He sipped his tea before blurting out, "Mom, who's the real Naruto?"

She sighed and asked, "Is this about you acting differently when you're posing as Tsunami?"

He gawked at her. "You knew!?"

"Not exactly," she said. "I knew that you wore a mask at the Academy and in the village. I also feared that when you started posing as Tsunami, that you would develop a different mask for her, since the point was that you wanted to be treated differently. If you recall, the whole disguise made me nervous."

He frowned. "It's not just Tsunami. Even when I'm out and about in the village in my birth form, I act differently now than when I was in the Academy—and I act differently with Konohamaru-kun than I do with Old Man Hokage or the shinobi supply stores."

"That's natural, Naruto, to a certain extent," she said. "Everyone acts differently among friends or family than they do with professional contacts. Most people also act differently around their friends than they do their family."

"I fell like I only really act like my true self here," Naruto said.

"That's because you're keeping secrets from everyone," his mom explained.

"That's not true," he protested. "The Old Man and Kurenai-sensei know."

"Are they your friends or peers?" Kushina asked.

"No they're not," he admitted.

"You should consider telling a friend or two," she said.

"I can't," he protested. "Hinata-chan still likes male-me. It would make things super awkward. Sakura-chan would murder me." He shuddered. "She would think I did it to spy on her like a pervert."

"What about other friends?" she asked.

"Sasuke-kun, surprisingly, might be okay with it, but I find it hard to relate to him in anything other than training. I don't think talking to him about it would help much—same with Shino-kun. Kiba-kun—just no. I've heard him talking about female-me in a way that made me feel unclean. I've had no real contact with Ino-chan, Chouji-kun, or Shikamaru-kun since we graduated. Konohamaru-kun is too young. . ."

"You know that the longer you go on without telling your teammates, the worse it will be if they take it badly."

He sighed. "I know that intellectually, but every time I think about telling them I get physically ill. I can almost taste their scorn and loathing."

His mom wrapped him in a hug, "Oh, Sweetie, if they're true friends, you'll get through it."

"But what if they aren't?" he asked quietly. "I think I'd prefer having fickle friends to no friends."

He squeezed his mother and let her comfort him.

* * *

Tsunami brought four armbands to the team meeting the next day. They each had a special seal on the inside.

After Kurenai had handed out the forms for the Exams, Tsunami handed out the armbands.

"What are these for, Tsunami-chan?" Kurenai asked.

"When you taught us tap code a month ago, I thought I code make a set of seals that would allow us to use it in more circumstances," Tsunami responded.

Tap code was designed to be used at night or in the dark when speaking was contraindicated. A series of long and short presses on the back of the hand or neck corresponded to hiragana which could be strung together to make words or phrases. None of the genin were very fast at it yet—using or interpreting it—but the seals should make it a lot more useful since you did not have to be right next to a person to use it and it would send the message to the whole team.

"You focus chakra into the seal and all the other armbands receive the signal," she continued. "At first I think we'll need to use fingers to use the seals, but eventually we should be able to focus the chakra through where ever the seal is touching our skin."

"This is a very clever idea, Tsunami-chan," their sensei said. "Did you prepare it for the exam?"

The redhead nodded. "I thought it would be a good place to use them. Obviously, you won't be needing yours yet, Sensei. But since it was already made, I thought I'd give it to you."

"Thank you, Tsunami-chan," Kurenai said. Hinata and Sakura also expressed their thanks.

Kurenai told them the location they needed to bring the forms to in the Academy building and then left after wishing them luck.

"Look," Tsunami said. "I know we can't make a lot of plans since we don't know what the exam involves, but I thought we could go over general strategies. You're both coming, right?"

The other two girls nodded—Sakura firmly and Hinata shyly.

"I think we should try and keep a low profile—at least to start off," Tsunami said. "As an all-kunoichi team we'll be attracting a lot of attention anyway. We don't need other teams ganging up on us or thinking we're an easy target."

"Wouldn't it be better if they underestimated us?" Sakura asked.

"Yes," Tsunami said, "but not too much. If they all target us, we'll eventually get worn out—even if we're one of the stronger teams."

"Ah, that makes sense," the pink-haired girl responded.

"This means you should avoid fawning over Sasuke-san or fighting with Ino-chan, Sakura-chan," Tsunami said.

"But I've hardly seen him since graduation," Sakura whined.

"You'll make a better impression on him if you take the exams seriously, Sakura-chan," Tsunami said. When she looked dubious, the redhead added, "Look, your current approach hasn't succeeded in interesting him. Try something new. Besides, this will help your career as a kunoichi, which you said you wanted to do regardless of Sasuke-san."

"Okay," Sakura agreed reluctantly, "but you'd better be right about this, Tsunami-chan."

Tsunami sighed. How did she become the responsible one?

Before they separated, they tested how tap code worked with the armbands and decided on some protocols to make it work better.

* * *

The three girls met at their normal meeting place with plenty of time to make it to the Academy before the first part of the exam started. Tsunami was excited, Sakura was nervously excited, and Hinata was nervously optimistic.

In the months that they had been a team, Sakura had matured a bit and stopped assuming that she was a great shinobi just because she had been one of the best Academy students and started working harder. Hinata had become more confident and agresseive, but was still shy.

When they got to the Academy building, Tsunami thought of trying to get in a different way, but decided that doing so would likely attract attention they were trying to avoid. She led her teammates through the main entrance. They were supposed to go to room 301, so they headed up the stairs. The door that led to the third floor was locked—and barred according to Hinata's Byakugan—so they exited the stairwell at the second floor.

To her mild surprise, there was a group of shinobi gathered around the door to one of the classrooms. The room number on the door read 301 despite being only on the second floor. Two shinobi were preventing the others from entering and denigrating the other candidates.

"Genjutsu?" she asked quietly.

Hinata flickered on her Byakugan and replied, "Yes."

"Let's get passed them without making any waves," Tsunami said.

They edged around the crowd as unobtrusively as they could. One of the bullies made eye contact with her, but did not call attention to them.

The other stairwell was blocked going down, but open going up. On the third floor they found Kurenai waiting for them. Tsunami supposed that there was a monitoring seal somewhere that allowed her to know they were there, since no other sensei were present.

She smiled at them. "I'm glad to see that you are here together. This test is only for full teams. If one of you had decided not to come, I would be required to turn you away. Stick together and help each other out and I know you'll do well."

"Thanks, Kurenai-sensei," Tsunami said. Her teammates also acknowledged their sensei's words.

Inside the _real_ room 301 was a small table with two proctors sitting at it. They exchanged their enrollment forms for seat numbers. A glance at the arrangements showed that their assigned seats were not close to each other.

While they were not the very first ones there, they were among the first. Rather than go to their seats they elected to remain near the back and talk—or rather Sakura chattered at the other two. While Tsunami knew it would be best to take their seats to avoid attention, she could tell her teammates were nervous and allowed them to remain together.

Chuunin hopefuls filtered into the room. Most of them took their seats after checking in, but groups also gathered. The first people that they recognized were Ino, Shikamaru, and Chouji's team. Ino waved at them, before settling in to watch the door like a hawk. Shikamaru rolled his eyes before slouching against a nearby wall. Chouji joined him. Others filtered into the room.

Five minutes later the whole room's attention was caught by a squeal. Tsunami looked over and saw Ino hanging on a scowling Sasuke's back.

She looked at Sakura's angry face. Her teammate started toward their old classmates but Tsunami grabbed her arm.

"I know we talked about this Tsunami-chan," Sakura said, "but I can't just let it go."

"Look at his face, Sakura-chan," she prompted.

"He doesn't like it!" the pink-haired girl said excitedly. "I can go and rescue him!"

"Look at how much attention they're attracting," Tsunami said. "Remember, we don't want to look too strong or too weak yet."

"I agree with Tsunami-chan," Hinata said quietly.

"Fine," Sakura said with a pout.

"There will be other times to save Sasuke-san from Ino-chan's depredations, Sakura-chan," Tsunami said with a grin.

The three kunoichi kept a clandestine watch on their old classmates while observing their other competition. Not long after Sasuke's team entered, Tsunami felt a small amount of killing intent. She looked over and noticed a Hyuuga glaring at them. The boy was obviously in the Branch House because he was wearing his Leaf Badge over his forehead, which Main House Hyuuga never did. His features were somewhat similar to Hinata's, so it was possible that they were close relatives. Tsunami was not sure how the Main/Branch split worked in the Hyuuga family, other than being pretty sure that one could be condemned to the Branch as punishment. The Hyuuga boy was accompanied by a boy in a truly-garish tight, green jumpsuit with orange leg warmers and a girl with her hair in buns wearing a pink sleeveless blouse and navy pants.

"What's his problem?" Tsunami asked.

"Neji-niisan is very talented," said Hinata sadly, "perhaps the most talented Hyuuga in generations, but he is in the Branch House. He finds the situation hard to bear."

"He's your brother?" Sakura exclaimed quietly.

"He's my first cousin," Hinata answered. "Our fathers were twin brothers. I've always thought of him as my brother, especially after his father died, but he's grown quite distant over the years."

Distant did not seem to cover it to Tsunami. She wanted to ask why her cousin was in the Branch House, but now did not seem to be a good time to ask about Hyuuga clan policies and politics.

Tsunami noticed when an older silver-haired Konoha genin with glasses joined the other rookies and started showing them some cards. After a few minutes, three genin with musical notes on their Shinobi Badge ran up to them. They were the typical two boy, one girl team. One of them with a bulky metal object on his forearm swung at the older genin. He was stouter and covered in bandages. He missed, but the Konoha genin toppled over, dazed. A small amount of blood leaked from his nose and his broken glasses hung off his face.

"Put this on your cards, Four Eyes," the assaulting genin roared. "The shinobi from Otogakure will definitely become chuunin!"

A cloud of smoke filled the front of the room. When the smoke dissipated, it revealed several Konoha shinobi. In the center was a man wearing a dark trench coat and a blue kerchief over his head with the Leaf Badge attached to it. He had two long scars running across his face.

"Stand down, Oto genin," he growled. "Any fighting without authorization from me is grounds for being sent home in disgrace on the grounds of gross stupidity."

"Sorry, sir," the attacking Oto genin said. "This is our first time and we let the excitement get to us."

"Sorry doesn't cut it, maggot," the lead proctor said. "One more mistake and you're gone. All of you get to your places. My name is Morino Ibiki, tokubetsu jounin of Konoha and for the duration of this test, I own you."

The fact that the Oto genin had attacked a fellow Konoha nin made Tsunami angry. She palmed one of her seals from her holster and slapped it on the underside of a desk as she passed. She activated a seal on her collar and said quietly, "What a bunch of morons. You'd have to be an idiot to attack a shinobi in their own village while surrounded by their comrades. Morino-san must think their stupidity will make a good object lesson for him to let people so incompetent through." The seal on the desk broadcasted her words, disguising them as a deep, masculine voice. The seal spoke by vibrating the air over an area, making it hard to pinpoint exactly where the voice came from. It was loud enough that the whole room heard it.

To her delight, one of the Oto nin, the skinny one with spiky hair, screamed, "Which of you Tree Huggers said that!? Whoever did is dead!"

"Get that moron and his team out of here!" growled Ibiki.

Proctors in chuunin vests surrounded the Oto nin, grabbing their arms. The loudmouth was spluttering in protest. The Oto kunoichi was pale as a ghost. The bandaged one grimaced.

"You can't do this!" the loudmouth said. "Our leader will. . ."

"Quiet, Zaku," the apparent leader said. "I protest Oto's only team being ejected before the exam even begins."

"You should have thought of that before you agreed to come with someone as unprofessional as your buddy," Ibiki said.

"My other teammate and I would be willing to compete as a short-handed team," he said.

Ibiki shook his head. "The rules are quite clear. Only full teams are allowed to compete for the first two stages of the exam, but more importantly, you've managed to irritate me. Maggots who irritate me don't last very long."

"What about the punk who triggered this?" the Oto nin growled. "Is Konoha going to show favoritism?"

Ibiki smiled. It was not a pleasant expression. "If you can pick out the offender, I'll kick him and his team out too. If you can't. . . Well, let's just say he was right in his assessment and we'll allow him to stay."

The Oto shinobi frowned, but nodded. He pointed to an older Konoha genin not far from the desk with the seal.

"Are you the one who spoke out of turn?" Ibiki asked the accused.

"No, sir. I'm not," he answered. The voice was clearly different than the one that had triggered Zaku's blow up.

The scar faced man arched an eyebrow at the Oto nin.

"He's disguising his voice," the Oto shinobi said.

"If you can't prove that he is in the next few seconds," Ibiki said, "we're done with this. I've already given you more time than you deserve."

The Oto ninja remained silent.

"Get them out of here," Ibiki growled. "And there better be no more disruptions from the supplicants."

As they were leaving, Tsunami saw the Oto kunoichi whispering frantically with the proctor escorting her away, but she was much too far away to tell what she was saying.

Those genin who were still standing, found their seats and Ibiki explained the rules. You started with ten points. Each wrong answer cost a point. If you were caught cheating it cost two points. Anyone with zero points was kicked out with their teammates. One question would be asked orally near the end of the exam. It looked like a few people wanted to protest, but Ibiki stared them into silence.

At the signal, Tsunami turned over her exam. The questions looked to be much harder than what a genin or even chuunin would be expected to know. She mentally laughed. They looked to be as hard as the questions that she had been tested with on Naruto's genjutsued Academy tests. She wondered if this was where Mizuki had gotten the questions.

She could answer one or two of the questions at best and that was only because of the extra tutoring that her mom gave her in her mindscape. After thinking about it for a few moments she realized that the test, with its odd scoring system, was designed to see if they could cheat without getting caught.

 _Tsu_ , she sent her teammates over their tap code armbands, signaling that she was the one sending. _Test too hard. Odd scoring. Want us cheat. Byakugan? Over._

 _Sa_ , Sakura responded. _Hard, but can answer. Over._

 _Hi_ , Hinata sent. _2 answer questions too fast. Plants? Over._

 _Tsu_ , she sent. _Nata gives answers. Kura checks. Over._

 _Sa. Copy._

 _Hi. Copy._

 _Tsu. Out._

Hinata sent the answers to the questions via tap code. Sakura signaled that the answers that Hinata gave were correct. The process was slow, since they were not that fast with tap code, but they still had more than enough time to finish before time was up. After Sakura stopped writing and was about to turn her sheet over, she jerked oddly. Tsunami noticed that Ino was slumped over in her seat. Tsunami recognized the Mind Body Switch in action. She also noted some other cheating, some more subtle than others. It was hard to know what the proctors thought was acceptable and what was not because they only called out people that had been caught enough times to fail.

"Times up, maggots," Ibiki growled. "Put down your pencils." He waited while all those still working did."

He explained the extra rules for the last question. He explained that they could opt out of the last question, failing the exam, or they could take it and risk the special consequence for the question, being permanently banned from participating in the Chuunin Exams if you missed it. There were loud protests at this that were quickly quenched. He explained that all of the Kage and village leaders had authorized the punishment, if he felt it were needed, and that the Oto shinobi had irritated him enough to implement it.

Two candidates immediately gave up.

 _Hi_ , her teammate sent over the armbands. _Plants leaving first. Out._

The fact that there was no matching teammate or teammates only confirmed that to Tsunami. Tension filled the room and others followed the plants out. The teammates of the quitters were also forced to leave. The whole thing was fishy to her. She knew Old Man Hokage better than most and knew that he would never agree to the punishment. He was all about second chances where possible. He certainly would not delegate that authority to a tokubetsu jounin. She also did not see foreign leaders giving that authority to a Konoha nin. There was too much chance for abuse.

She looked over and saw her teammates wavering.

 _Tsu_ , she sent. _Don't quit. Trick. No authority. Over._

 _Sa. You sure? Over._

 _Hi. Scar man very convincing. Over._

 _Tsu. Positive. Other villages never give Konoha authority. Over._

There was a pause before her teammates sent there responses.

 _Sa. Copy. Over._

 _Hi. Copy. Over._

 _Tsu. Out._

The tension mounted as teams continued to quit. Ibiki waited stoically. The other proctors smirked.

Finally, after no one had quit for several minutes, Ibiki said, "Is everyone certain they want to take the question? This is the last chance to save your career. . ."

When no one else quit, he said, "Very well. You all pass."

The room exploded into shouts and yells—some happy and some angry. Ibiki silenced them and then explained the purposes of the test—to see if they could be sneaky and to test their determination. He told them of the risks they had to be able to take as shinobi and especially chuunin. He took off his kerchief and showed them the disturbing scars that he had accumulated as a shinobi.

As he was retying his kerchief, one of the windows shattered and a bundle crashed into the opposite wall. The bundle was a banner that was nailed to the wall with a couple of kunai that followed it. The weight that had propelled the banner into the room crashed loudly to the floor. The kunai were followed by a figure somersaulting through the broken window.

The figure halted under the banner, which read, "The Stunning and Sexy Second Exam Proctor: Mitarashi Anko-sama!"

The figure spoke, "This is no time to celebrate. I'm Mitarashi Anko, your new proctor!"


	16. Chapter 15: Dangerous Game

After a little bit of good-natured sniping between Ibiki and Anko, all the candidates made their way to Training Ground 44. None of them elected to follow Anko out the window.

The entrance to Training Ground 44 was gated. They found Anko standing prominently next to an ominous sign that declared:

 **Training Ground 44**

 **The Forest of Death**

 **Keep Out**

Sakura managed to position them next to Team 7. Naruto took the opportunity to exam the other candidates, since there were not as many distractions as there were in the First Exam. Nothing stood out to her, as she really did not know anyone other than her old classmates. She did notice again one girl who had hair almost the same color as she did. However, she was had not been able to get a good view of her shinobi badge in order to tell which village she came from. She was pretty sure, however, that it was not Konoha.

Kiba made a big production of scoffing loudly about how easily he would lead his team through the "so-called Forest of Death."

Anko threw a kunai at the boy, which grazed his cheek and cause Akamaru to fall off his head when he flinched. The proctor quickly caught the boy in a headlock and licked the blood off his cheek.

"It's the loud ones that always die first and provide the blood that I love so much," she said.

An androgynous Kusa nin used his tongue to hand the knife back to Anko.

"Eww," said Sakura.

Hinata shrank into herself at the display.

Frankly Tsunami did not blamed them, but she kept a neutral expression in order to avoid attracting attention. "Don't react," she said quietly.

Anko explained the rules of the Second Exam. Each team would be given one of two kinds of scrolls: a heaven or an earth. They would need both scrolls to be admitted to a tower on the far side of the forest within 120 hours (five days). They were to capture the other type of scroll from another team by any means necessary and all of their team had to survive. To heighten the tension, Anko made them each sign waivers that absolved Konoha and the proctors of blame if they died or were crippled during the test.

With a last admonish of "Don't die!" Anko had her assistants lead each team to a different gate into the training ground. They had received a Heaven Scroll. Tsunami sealed it into a special storage seal that did not interfere with other seals.

 _Tsu_ , Tsunami tapped. _Nata. Byakugan. Tell which teams near Earth Scroll. Over._

Hinata flashed on her Doujutsu and then tapped, _Hi. Only see 2 teams. Both Heaven. Over._

 _Tsu. Drat. Out._

After about ten minutes a bell was heard and the assistant proctor let them into the forest. As soon as they were out of sight of the gate, Tsunami formed six Shadow Clones with the idea that they would each run the Mind's Eye Technique and spread out on all sides of them several hundred meters. Tsunami herself also ran the Mind's Eye Technique, just in case. While her sensory technique was not as detailed as Hinata's Byakugan, they had about the same range—500 meters—and she had the chakra to run it continuously, even with multiple clones out, while Hinata did not. They ran for about ten more minutes, before stopping to talk.

"We have a pretty big advantage," Tsunami said, "in that Nata-chan can tell what kind of scroll our competitors have at about half a kilometer away."

Hinata blushed at the praise.

"I can send out scouting Shadow Clones," Tsunami continued, "to find people and then once I find them, we can bring Nata-chan in to see if they have what we need."

"That sounds like a good plan," Sakura said. "We don't want to fight anyone we don't have to, right?"

Naruto nodded. "Even if we win, which I expect we would most of the time, we could give away information that we don't want to."

"What about Neji-nisan?" Hinata asked. "His range is bigger than either of ours."  
Tsunami shook her head. "I know his chakra signature. Even if he chases after us, I'll know it before he gets close, especially with my scouting clones. Do you really think he would chase us down?"

"He would take our scroll given the opportunity," Hinata said sadly, "but he would probably think it was beneath him to chase us down if there were other opportunities within reach."

"Do you think we should run from them?" Sakura asked. "We need to get a scroll from someone, don't we?"

"I would rather not fight any other Konoha teams at this point," Tsunami said. "Not even Nata-chan's jerk of a cousin. Plus, we want to keep a low profile, remember? You said that your cousin is good. Do you know anything about his teammates?"

Hinata said, "Just generalities. The boy in green is another taijutsu specialist. I know that Neji-niisan looks down on him, but. . ."

"He looks down on everyone, so we don't really know his skill level," Naruto finished.

Hinata nodded, looking embarrassed for her cousin. "The girl is weapon specialist. She must be good at it, because Neji-niisan doesn't insult her beyond her not being a Hyuuga."

Tsunami snorted and Sakura shook her head.

Tsunami stretched and said, "Any preference in which direction we head?"

Both of the other girls shook their heads.

"How about South?" Tsunami offered.

"Sounds good to me," Sakura said.

Tsunami summoned a clone and then dispelled it in order to tell her scouts which direction they were headed.

* * *

Unfortunately the first two teams they encountered to the South each had Heaven Scrolls.

"How could we end up in a group of four teams that all had Heaven Scrolls?" Naruto complained.

"Maybe they knew Nata-chan could tell which ones they had and didn't want to make it too easy for us?" Sakura suggested. "If they're competent at all, they'd have to know that the Byakugan can identify the scrolls at a distance."

"They better have done the same to Nata-chan's jerk of a cousin," Tsunami groused.

Hinata giggled. "He would hate that."

"Do you think it would teach him some humility, Nata-chan?" Tsunami asked.

Hinata giggled some more. "Doubtful, Nami-chan. He's completely hung up on Fate and thinks that the world is out to get him. He'd see it as validation."

"Makes me want to pity him as well as hate him for. . ." Tsunami said before cutting off as she got memories from a dispelled clone.

"What is it, Nami-chan?" Sakura asked.

"Found another group," she said. "Their chakra signatures are weak, so if they have the right scroll, I say we go for it."

They approached the group and stopped when they were about 400 meters away.

"They're from Suna," Hinata said. "There formation is sloppy and they _do_ have an Earth Scroll. The bigger of the boys is carrying it."

"Can you tell if they're specialized?" Sakura asked. "The most famous tactics Suna uses revolve around Wind manipulation using fans, puppets, and cloth manipulation."

"They each have non-folding tessen [ _iron war fan_ ] on their backs, but they don't have the chakra reserves to be able to pull off many elemental manipulation techniques, if any," Hinata answered.

"So they're beginner, or wannabe, Wind users," Naruto said.

"I'd watch out for Wind chakra coating their tessen, but probably not too many long-range techniques," Sakura said. She hesitated. "Suna is our closest ally. We should refrain from killing them, right?"

Hinata coughed delicately. "The alliance exists only because Suna hasn't figured out a way to gracefully exit it. But I agree, I see no reason to kill them."

The fight could not even really be called a fight. Hinata and Tsunami each ambushed one of the boys while three of Tsunami's clones took on the girl and Sakura and more of Tsunami's clones stood overwatch to make sure none of them would escape. All three Suna nin went down with barely any sound. Tsunami's extra clones were not even needed.

"These guys were chumps," Naruto said as she rooted through the bigger boy's pack to collect their scroll. She found it and put it in the same storage seal as the Heaven Scroll.

"That would have been much harder if we weren't in such a dense forest, Nami-chan," Sakura mentioned. "We do have a pretty substantial home field advantage, even without ever having set foot in this particular forest."

"They were still chumps," Tsunami said.

Sakura snorted and said, "I don't really disagree."

Hinata giggled.

"Let's head toward the tower," Tsunami said. "The sooner we're done, the better."

The other two agreed and Naruto sent out her scouts again and they took off at a good pace.

"Hold up," Tsunami said as she received memories from a scout Shadow Clone that had dispelled herself. "A single shinobi is heading toward us, being chased by a large animal. I recognize their chakra from earlier in the tests, but there were too many people for me to have nailed down which candidate they are. They have a lot for a genin—almost as much as Kurenai-sensei—but it's untrained and passive-feeling."

"Are they going to miss us?" Sakura asked.

Tsunami shook her head. "No they were headed right for us."

"Should we move a little and see if they are really headed for us?" Hinata asked.

"Good idea," Sakura said.

Tsunami made more clones that headed off in the direction of the unknown shinobi. The three of them switched directions and kept moving. A minute later, Tsunami said, "They've switched directions to follow us. Their chakra is starting to feel panicked and desperate. You should be able to see them now, Nata-chan."

Hinata activated her eyes. "It's the redheaded kunoichi from Kusa," she said. "She's being chased by a large bear. She doesn't have a scroll on her."

"She's from Kusa?" Tsunami muttered. "I could never get a glimpse of her Shinobi Badge."

"You think she's a relative, Nami-chan?" Hinata asked. "Her hair color is almost the same as yours and there are some similarities in your chakra."

"I don't know," she replied. "It's possible that there were refugees from Uzushio other than Mom. I think we should help her."

The other two agreed and they ran toward the other girl.

Sakura and several Tsunami clones peppered the bear with kunai in order to snag its attention, while Tsunami approached the other redhead. The boar roared in anger and charged Sakura. Before it had covered half the distance, Hinata dropped out of the trees and fried its brain with a Gentle Fist palm strike. The bear collapsed with a thud.

"Umm, thanks for the save," the redheaded Kusa nin said. Her messy red hair mostly covered her Grass Badge. She wore glasses and had red eyes. "I'm Karin."

"I'm Tsunami and these are Hinata-chan and Sakura-chan." She gestured to the others. "Why were you coming towards us?"

"I was just running from the bear," the other redhead protested.

"I could tell that you changed direction when we did," Tsunami pointed out sternly.

"You're a sensor too?" Karin said fingering her hair.

Tsunami nodded—figuring she could give away a little if it helped to confirm the girl was an Uzumaki. "Hinata-chan too, but you knew that already if you know anything about the clans of Konoha."

"You have the warmest chakra out of anyone in the forest—it reminds me a little bit of my mother's," Karin said, flushing a little. "I was just glad that you were close."

"What happened to your teammates?" Sakura asked.

"We stumbled into a small group of bears," she said. "I don't know what happened to them."

"Do you need help finding them again?" Hinata asked.

Karin adjusted her glasses and looked again at Tsunami. "I don't really get along with them—or anyone in Kusa really. Kusa took us in when I was small, but they never really accepted us and they pretty much worked my mom to death. I was hoping to use the Exams to slip out of their grasp."

"Where did you come from before Kusa?" Tsunami asked intently.

"My mom came from Uzushio," she whispered.

"Mine too," Naruto said, smiling. "Uzumaki?"

She nodded, grinning slightly.

"If it's true that you're an Uzumaki, I'm sure Hokage-sama will let you stay," Tsunami said. "You'll probably have to take a medical exam to make sure, but it shouldn't be to onerous."

"That would be great," Karin said.

"We can talk more when we get to the tower," Tsunami said. "We've got what we need, so we can go straight there."

Tsunami knew she was taking a risk by admitting that. But she desperately wanted to believe that Karin was not only a relative, but a friendly one that would be able to come live with her. Her teammates looked wary, but were willing to follow her lead on this.

They moved out again with Tsunami and Karin in the lead and Hinata and Sakura behind them. Tsunami also kept a pair of Shadow Clones close at hand, just in case.

Twenty minutes later, Tsunami stopped as her scout clones detected someone ahead of them and one of them dispelled.

"There's a single shinobi up ahead of us," Naruto reported.

"It's the Konoha shinobi that was showing cards to those rookies before the first test," Karin said.

"You can tell?" Tsunami asked, surprised.

"I'm a very good sensor," Karin commented smugly. "My range covers the entire training ground and all of Konoha. He distinguished himself enough for me to remember what he felt like."

"Can you tell anything else about him, Karin-san?" Sakura asked.

"His chakra feels cold and patient. It's also tightly wound too—which is odd," Karin said.

"What could cause that?" Tsunami asked curiously.

"It could be any number of things—he could be suppressing his chakra or he could naturally have dense chakra," she said. "It's not anything I've encountered before, so I really couldn't say."

"Let's get closer so that Nata-chan can see what he's doing," Tsunami said.

When they got close enough for Hinata to see with her Byakugan, she said, "He's just sitting there. His leg is in a splint."

"He _is_ a Konoha shinobi. . ." Sakura said.

Karin grimaced. "I don't want to say that you shouldn't help your comrade, but something feels off about this. He doesn't feel pained or worried, like someone with a broken bone should."

"I think he's a medic," Hinata said. "Maybe he deadened his pain?"

"He's still hobbled by an injury in the middle of 'The Forest of Death' with hostile shinobi and animals around," said Karin. "He's way too calm for that."

"I think we should go see if he needs help," Tsunami said. "We can be careful about it. As a precaution I'll have Shadow Clones standing by to swap us out if there's a problem." She looked at her apparent relative. "I think you should stay here, Karin-chan while we approach him since you're not a Konoha shinobi yet. I'll leave some clones to protect you and tell you when to approach or to direct you on the way to go to meet up with us."

The other three kunoichi agreed and Tsunami made three Shadow Clones to stay with Karin.

When they approached the older Konoha nin, he called to them gratefully, "I'm glad to see some fellow Konoha shinobi. My name is Kabuto and I got separated from my team."

"I'm Sakura and these are Hinata-chan and Tsunami-chan," the pink-haired kunoichi said. "What happened to your leg?"

Kabuto laughed ruefully. "I was running and stepped into a gopher hole and twisted my knee pretty badly. It's nothing I can't recover from in a day or so—especially since I'm a medic—but this is a really bad place to get injured, so I'm very happy to see you."

"Do you need help finding your team?" Tsunami asked.

"That would be best, but I can't ask that of you," Kabuto said. "How about you help me get to the tower. I don't think it's far and I can wait for my team by the entrance. I should be safe from animals there at least."

"I think we can manage that," Tsunami said. "I can make some Shadow. . ." She was cut off as she felt something slap her twice on the back. Her chakra oscillated erratically and the memories of _all_ her current Shadow Clones came rushing into her mind as they all dispelled. She toppled to the ground and saw another Kabuto standing over her, smirking. Her peripheral vision saw other Kabutos standing where Hinata and Sakura had been. They must have been tagged by whatever technique or seal Kabuto's Shadow Clones had used too.

The original Kabuto came and stood over her—his splint having been removed from his leg. "You've caused me quite a bit of trouble, Tsunami-chan," he chided. "I was watching you when the Oto team got called out during the first exam and I saw your lips moving in time with the voice. Because they got kicked out, Orochimaru-sama required my teammates to test Sasuke-kun and my cover will be blown, but I'll have my kilo of flesh in return. Orochimaru-sama and I have been curious as to whether you're really Namikaze's daughter, so my kilo of flesh will be literal flesh."

His smirk became devilish. "However, it's your teammate who has determined which kilo of flesh will be taken. I've always wanted a Byakugan eye to play with, so I suppose it won't be a full kilo.

"I'll only take one eye each. You can be a matching set of crippled kunoichi, assuming you don't die of blood loss or shock. You might even be able to keep being shinobi—Kakashi-kun managed."

Kabuto leaned over and a green chakra blade flashed in front of her face. Her left eye erupted in pain and she heard and felt her eye removed with a slurp. The last thing she heard was cruel laughter before darkness took her.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Dun dun _dun_!

I'm also removing the "No pairings planned" tag, because I've got one planned. However, I'm not going to spoil it. I don't believe in 12 or 13 year olds getting serious, so it won't come into play much for a while in-story.


	17. Chapter 16: Restoration

**Author's Note:** (2016-11-01) I've altered the discussion of male Naruto having the "transformation bloodline" slightly so that it makes more sense. It got a little garbled between revisions.

* * *

"Bite!" Naruto heard a vaguely familiar voice command. He bit down until he felt resistance. It felt like a person's flesh. He started to release it.

"Bite, Tsunami-chan," the voice commanded. "I can heal people when they bite me. It's the only way I can stop the bleeding without cauterizing your eyehole."

She remembered the forest, her cousin Karin, and that smug jerk Kabuto stealing her eye. She tentatively bit down again.

"Harder," Karin commanded.

She bit until she felt her teeth pierce Karin's flesh. She felt a warm energy enter her and the pain in her eye stopped hurting.

"Stop!" Karin commanded. "Let go. I need to help the others too."

Tsunami immediately let go and the warmth ended. She opened her eye and saw a concerned Karin rubbing her arm.

"Normally, I can only safely heal one person a day," Karin said. "I think I stopped you soon enough that I can heal your friends."

Karin proceeded to do the same thing to Hinata and Sakura with Tsunami helping her. They each glowed with chakra while they were biting Karin. If their situation were not so serious, Tsunami would be amused at Karin trying to get each of them to bite her. She frowned at the fleshy emptiness in her teammates' eye sockets.

Tsunami wondered how much chakra it would take to replace her eye—certainly more than replacing her finger. Her teammates were handling their disfigurement differently. Sakura looked worried and more than a little angry. Hinata was looking more and more depressed.

"What happened here, girls?" Karin asked. "I knew that guy was suspicious, but I never expected this!"

"The smug jerk said he was working for Orochimaru," Tsunami said.

"Why would he tell you that?" Karin asked. "Did he expect you to die before you could tell anyone? That seems incredibly sloppy."

"He said he would be outed anyway since his teammates were ordered to attack another Konoha team," Tsunami answered.

"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura exclaimed. "We have to help him!"

"I don't think any of you are in any position to save anyone," Karin said. "It will take a lot of training to be able to fight effectively with only one eye."

"You could save him, Nami-chan," Sakura said. "You can grow back your eye, like your finger, can't you?"

Karin turned to her, wide-eyed. "You can do that? Do you have the Healing Bite Technique too?"

Tsunami stilled herself. She wanted to trust her new-found cousin, but she was technically a foreign shinobi. This made her irritated with Sakura for outing her. Although she figured that Karin would find out sooner or later, assuming she had enough chakra to fix her eye.

"I have a rare Uzumaki healing bloodline that's pretty powerful" Tsunami admitted. "I've never heard of the Healing Bite Technique before now, so I don't know if I can do it."

"Do you know the limitations of it?" Karin asked curiously.

"I think the only limitations are that I need to be aware enough to use it and I have to have enough chakra to use it."

"You have a lot of chakra," Karin said. "I mean more than anyone else in Konoha—substantially more than the Hokage even." She paused. "Do you think you could replace your eye more than once? I could transplant an eye from you to your teammates. Kusa taught me surgery techniques."

"They taught you healing techniques?" Sakura asked. "Why did you have us bite you if you could do that?"

Karin snorted. "Why would they bother to teach me something like the Mystic Palm when they can just bite me? It's not like they cared about the poor foreign shinobi. They used my mom up until she died and were planning on doing the same to me."

"Don't bother transplanting an eye for me," Hinata interjected sullenly. "My shinobi career is over."

"Why are you giving up, Nata-chan?" Tsunami asked. "Even with only one eye, you could still be a shinobi—look at Kakashi-sensei. I bet with your Byakugan it would hardly be a disadvantage."

"The clan council will brand me with the Caged Bird Seal and then never let me leave the clan compound," she said, growing quieter as she talked. Traces of her old stutter were creeping back into her speech.

"They would do that without giving you a chance to prove yourself?" Sakura asked.

"They already think I'm weak," Hinata said bitterly. "Losing an eye would only confirm it beyond all doubt. It would give them an excuse to move the time table up and sequester me to remove the stigma of the failed heiress from the clan."

"Your father. . ." Sakura started to say.

"My father agrees with them," Hinata said, her bitterness increasing, "and even if he didn't, he wouldn't waste political capital in the clan on me when he has another daughter who fulfills everyone's expectations."

All three of the other girls stared at her in horror.

"The Hokage. . ." Tsunami said.

"The Hokage would be sympathetic, but he can't afford to alienate the Hyuuga clan," Hinata said.

At that point no one knew what to say to her. The silence was depressing and awkward at the same time. Naruto began to think about her transformation ability. There was something about it that niggled at the back of her mind. Her mother had thought that she could transform into a girl because either the Kyuubi was female or because she and Mito were female and so the Kyuubi's chakra understood female. She could replace her finger because she knew what it was like with it there. Could she duplicate a Byakugan eye if she knew what one was like? If Karin transplanted Hinata's remaining eye into her, could she make another? The odds were that she would destroy her other eye. The odds were also very high that this would out her as Naruto. She looked over at her dark-haired teammate. All the work that she, Sakura, and Kurenai had put into making her more confident had evaporated in moments. In fact, she seemed worse than she had ever been. She had to make the offer. Even if she hated her for pretending to be a "real girl," at least she could escape the fate she had outlined.

"I think I know of a way that might replace your eye, Nata-chan," Tsunami said. "I don't know if it will actually work, but we can try if you want to."

"I'll try anything," Hinata said desperately.

"My healing bloodline isn't really a healing bloodline," Tsunami said quietly. "I can use it for healing myself, but it's primarily a transformation bloodline. It has some limitations in that I can only transform into things that I understand. I can make an eye that looks like a Byakugan eye, but I can't make one that works like a Byakugan because I don't understand it."

"Having a fake Byakugan would not work," Hinata said. "My clansmen would notice when the veins in my left temple do not protrude."

"Why aren't you an infiltration specialist?" Karin asked.

"Because I don't want to be," Tsunami said. "I really don't have the temperament for it. Plus, some of the things that infiltration specialists do. . ." She shuddered. "The Hokage likes me enough to humor me. Please don't spread my bloodline around though. If others knew about it, the Hokage might not be able to ignore it."

She took a breath and turned back to Hinata. "If Karin-chan transplants your remaining eye into my empty socket and then I use my bloodline, I might be able to duplicate your eye because my body would understand it after using my bloodline. There's a risk that it would make your remaining eye a normal one without me learning how to make Byakugan eyes. Of course, if it works, you'll be giving the Byakugan to someone who is not a Hyuuga."

Hinata closed her eyes, the remaining one and the empty socket, and remained silent for a long time. Finally she said, "The Hyuuga clan needs to change. I love my sister, but she is not the one to change it; she has become invested with the Hyuuga concept of strength. Most of the problems the clan has now stem from paranoia about losing control of the Byakugan—or at least using that paranoia as an excuse for control. I would rather give the Byakugan to a loyal friend than to have the Hyuuga clan remain a cold, dysfunctional family." She paused and then smirked. "Plus, I really, really don't want the Caged Bird Seal."

Tsunami snorted. "You had us going there with your noble considerations for your clan's future, Nata-chan."

"I would make the sacrifice if I thought it was good for my clan," Hinata said seriously, "but since I don't think it is, I don't have to make the sacrifice."

"I hope it works for you Nata-chan," said Sakura before turning to Tsunami. "So Naruto-san could look like a girl, even if he weren't fully functional? He has the same bloodline, right?"

Tsunami froze. This discussion was what she was hoping to avoid.

"I've seen Nami-chan us her transformation technique and it doesn't change her chakra signature, Kura-chan," Hinata said. "I can tell if it were him at a glance—even without seeing internals. You both use your boodline rather than the standard Disguise Technique, right, Nami-chan?"

Tsunami nodded dumbly. She felt incredibly guilty for not telling her friends the truth right then. However, dropping that bombshell while they were in the middle of a life-or-death struggle seemed like a bad idea. She resolved to tell them when the situation was less life threatening.

"Naruto-kun?" Karin asked. "Who's that?"

"Nami-chan's brother," Sakura answered.

"Is he cute?" Karin asked.

"Nata-chan thinks so," Sakura said wickedly.

"Kura-chan!" Hinata protested. Both she and Tsunami both turned bright red.

"Does Hinata-san have a boyfriend?" Karin asked teasingly.

Hinata turned even redder, before drawing herself up and visibly calming herself. "I think Naruto-kun would make an excellent boyfriend," she said regally. "However both our situations do not allow for that to happen right now, if ever."

"So you don't mind if I chase him, do you?" Karin teased.

"Karin-chan!" Tsunami protested. She was almost as flushed as Hinata had been. "You don't even know him!"

Karin looked at Hinata who pressed her fingers together. "I don't have any real claim on him; you'll have to talk to Nami-chan about permission."

Karin smirked and turned to Tsunami. "So do you think your brother would like to restore the clan with me?" She adopted a sultry pose.

Tsunami finally realized that Karin was hamming things up in order to get their minds off of what had happened. She laughed. "You got me. Just don't make me think about my brother like that anymore, okay?"

The other girls all joined her in laughing.

"I think we ought to find a place to hide out," Karin said. "I'd be happy to do the surgery for you guys, but it should wait for tomorrow. I've used up quite a bit of my chakra with the Healing Bite. I'd like to have some in reserve, just in case."

"That's a good idea," Tsunami said. "But before we leave, we should try and figure out how Kabuto got the drop on us so that it doesn't happen again."

"I've figured out some of it at least," Karin said. "There's a dead area in the ground here. I can't sense any of the insects and worms that are always in the ground here. I usually don't pay any attention to that, but I've been trying to figure out how his clones just appeared out of nowhere. There's a distinctive chakra surge when a clone is created and that didn't happen here. While we've been talking, I flipped over a few stones. Look."

She pointed toward where she had flipped over a stone. Some pill bugs and earthworms were visible.

"Even seeing them I can't sense them," Karin said.

"You can sense bugs?" Tsunami asked, feeling a little bit awed. "I'm no where that good a sensor."

"I have a really strong talent as a sensor," Karin said proudly. "Normally I could sense bugs if I concentrated, but these are invisible to me."

"She's right," Hinata said. She had her Byakugan activated. "There's something in the ground that's blocking my Byakugan. He must have used a technique to shield the ground from sensing techniques and then hidden clones underground."

"Then he got me with a technique that destabilized all my contingency clones before they could rescue us via Replacement," Tsunami said.

"What kind of technique could hide him from the Byakugan and Karin-san's exceptional sensing technique?" Sakura asked.

"Has to be a seal if it's still active," Tsunami said. "Can either of you find the center of the 'dead area?'"

"Yes," both of them said.

After a moment of wandering around, Karin said, "Right here." She pointed to a medium-sized rock.

Hinata nodded agreement.

Tsunami flipped over the rock. Underneath it was a card, which had a seal array on it. The only thing that she recognized off the top of her head was a self-destruct sequence with a time delay on it.

"This has a time-delayed self-destruct on it," she said. "That's why he didn't bother to collect it."

"That's too bad," Sakura said. "Something this might be useful to you if you could figure it out."

"Who says I can't?" Tsunami said with a smirk. She picked it up and placed it in a special storage seal. "I put it in a stasis seal. Now the countdown timer is halted."

"Smart," Sakura said with an answering smirk.

"Alright, Nata-chan," Tsunami said. "Find us a good hiding place to spend the night."

"Okay," she responded.

* * *

Hinata found them a large tree that had a hollow in it that was barely large enough for the four of them. It looked like the hollow had been made by aspiring chuunin many years earlier using various elemental techniques.

After they had settled down, Tsunami said, "I'm going to send out 20 Shadow Clones to see if I can't find Sasuke-san's team. Between them and my sensory technique, I should be able to find him within a couple of hours."

Karin said, "Before you found me I sensed a very large and very foul chakra signature to the northwest. I bet it was that Orochimaru guy."

"Can you still sense him?" Tsunami asked.

She shook her head. "If a skilled shinobi suppresses their chakra, I can only sense them when they're nearby. I could only sense him from far away because he was using chakra."

"Thanks, Karin-chan," she told her cousin. "I'll start my search over there."

She formed 30 Shadow Clones. Ten of them she kept nearby in order to guard their hiding spot, the rest she sent looking for Sasuke, Kiba, and Shino.

An hour later she received memories from a clone of the clone that had found them. She formed a clone and dispelled it to tell ten of her clones to converge on Shino's location and dispel the rest.

"I found them," she told the others.

"Are they alright?" Sakura asked.

"Sasuke-san and Kiba-san are unconscious, but still alive," Tsunami answered. "Shino-san and Akamaru-chan are watching them." She hesitated. "Kiba-san will recover in a day or so. Shino-san isn't as sure about Sasuke-san. Orochimaru did something to him and he's running a pretty high fever."

"We have to do something!" Sakura exclaimed.

"I _am_ doing something, Kura-chan," Tsunami said. "I've directed ten of the clones I sent out earlier to go help Shino-san. He's very competent. I'm sure they'll be fine."

"Maybe Karin-san can go heal Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked.

Tsunami shook her head. "It's not a normal illness. My clone looked him over. The traitor put a seal of some sort on him. It's too advanced for me to do anything about it, but I don't think Karin-chan can do anything about the symptoms without removing the seal first."

"That's correct," Karin said.

They tried to get some sleep, but they were all anxious for what the next day would bring.

* * *

The next morning after a silent breakfast, they prepped for the surgeries. First was removing Hinata's remaining eye and transplanting it into Tsunami's empty socket.

"Are you ready for this, Hinata-san?" Karin asked.

Hinata nodded and said, "Put me to sleep, please. Don't wake me up until I have two eyes again—one way or the other. Being blind is a particular phobia for Hyuuga."

Karin performed a technique that put Hinata to sleep.

"Are you ready, Tsunami-chan?" she asked.

"Yeah, put me to sleep too, Karin-chan," Tsunami responded.

The next thing she knew, Karin was telling her to bite again. She took a brief "snack" of her cousin's chakra.

She blinked both eyes. Karin's Healing Bite made her recovery from the surgery almost instantaneous.

"That looks so odd, Nami-chan," Sakura commented. She held out a compact mirror for Tsunami to look. She took the compact and looked at her face in the mirror. She agreed that she looked odd with mismatched eyes.

"You ready to see if you can activate the Byakugan?" Karin asked.

They had all agreed that Tsunami would have a better chance of replicating Hinata's eyes if she could activate her bloodline ability first.

"Yeah." Hinata had said that most Hyuuga activated the bloodline without seals or with just one, but she had taught Tsunami the set of seals that were taught to Hyuuga children for use when they were just learning to activate the bloodline. She went through the hand seals: Horse, Tiger with lifting just index fingers, Boar with nearly straightened fingers, Hare, Rat, Dog, Horse, Dog, Hare, Rat, Boar with nearly straightened fingers, and Snake with the right index finger lifted straight up. She sent chakra to her new eye as she did the last seal. The world opened up to her. She had a hard time comprehending what her new eye was showing her, but after a few moments she could focus on individual parts of the vision field.

"Whoa!" she said. "That's intense!"

"It worked?" Sakura asked.

"Yeah," she responded. "This part of it definitely worked. Now for step two."

She concentrated and transformed into Sakura.

"That's kind of freaky," Sakura muttered.

"Stand side by side!" Karin said.

They did so.

"Tsunami-chan looks a lot like Sakura-san," Karin said, "but she's still a little taller and her figure is a little bit fuller. The face looks amazing though."

"Nata-chan's eye changed then?" Tsunami asked.

"Yep!" Karin answered.

Tsunami took a deep breath and said, "Time for step three."

She concentrated and transformed back into herself, but focused on having Byakugan eyes like Hinata's.

"They look like Hinata's eyes," Sakura said.

Tsunami ran through the sequence of hand seals again. The world opened up to her view again. This time she had an easier time focusing on individual objects in her view.

"The veins on both sides of your temples are engorged," Karin said. "I think it worked."

Tsunami heaved a sigh of relief while Sakura raised a fist into the air and uttered a wordless shout of joy.

Karin put Tsunami under again. She woke up to a dull ache in her eyes and Hinata hugging her and repeating, "Thank you!" over and over again. They had decided to forgo having her bite Karin again to conserve Karin's chakra.

"You're welcome, Nata-chan," she said. "It's the least I could do for my dear friend."

Her eyes sockets were bandaged shut to cut down on the bleeding and reduce the risk of infection. It was odd to think that she was currently blind and without eyes.

After Hinata composed herself, Tsunami used the transformation technique to give herself eyes. She felt drained—like she had just created more than a hundred Shadow Clones. That was taxing, even considering her reserves.

"Are you alright?" Karin asked. "You just used a huge amount of chakra."

"Yeah," she said. "Just a little tired. Unwrap my eyes please."

Someone carefully unwrapped her eyes. She opened them to see Karin's smiling face.

"Amazing," Karin said.

"Give me an hour to recover before the next surgery," Tsunami said.

"I can wait," Sakura said. "I'm just happy you're able to do this for us, Nami-chan."

Tsunami smiled and said, "Like I told Nata-chan. You guys are my friends."

While they waited, Tsunami wondered if she could change the way the Byakugan looked and still keep its function. She concentrated on making Byakugan eyes with green irises and black pupils and then did her transformation technique. She peered at her eyes with Sakura's compact. They looked like Sakura's eyes. She ran through the Byakugan hand seals and sent chakra to her eyes. Success!

"What are you doing, Tsunami-chan?" Karin asked.

"Experimenting," she answered with a grin. "Notice anything?"

"You copied Hinata-san's eyes again," Karin answered.

"Not exactly," she replied.

"Hey," Sakura said. "Those eyes are the same color as mine!"

"Nata-chan?" Tsunami asked. "Do you mind if I give Kura-chan your Byakugan too?"

"I don't mind," Hinata answered with a smile. "You two are more like family to me than my own clan. You both will just have to be very careful not to get caught using it."

"Do you think that Shino-san would let us know where he gets his sunglasses from?" Tsunami asked with a smirk.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** The hand seal sequence for the Byakugan activation is taken from Narutopedia.


	18. Chapter 17: The End of the Second Exam

After Karin transplanted Tsunami's left eye into Sakura, they took some more time to recover. Tsunami used her transformation ability to recover her eye. She made her eyes into Byakugan eyes in her normal blue color. Karin had Sakura bite her so that she would recover from the transplant. Tsunami was not willing to take more than an hour before they set out again.

While they had waited, Hinata had shown Sakura how to activate her Byakugan eye. Sakura figured it out quickly, but like Tsunami, she found the output from the eye confusing. Even without Tsunami and Sakura being able to use their new Byakugan effectively, avoiding the dangers found in the forest and the other contestants was trivial using Tsunami's Shadow Clone scouts with their sensory ability, Karin's much greater sensory abilities, and Hinata's Byakugan. Any one of the three would likely have been sufficient, but after falling for Kabuto's trap, they were thankful to have the redundancy.

They arrived at the tower hours later. The door led to a small, empty room. The only thing inside was a riddle written on the wall. While Naruto was not as stupid as many thought he/she was, riddles were not her strength or interest, so she left the solving of it to Hinata and Sakura.

"I think we need to open our scrolls," Sakura said.

"It makes sense," Hinata said. "They told us at the beginning not to open them until we got here."

"Both at once or one at a time?" Tsunami asked.

"Probably both at once," Sakura said, "since they are both required to pass."

Tsunami removed the two scrolls and handed the Heaven Scroll to Sakura. "Ready?" she asked.

Sakura nodded and they both unfurled the scrolls. Symbols expanded and connected the two scrolls. "Summoning seal!" Tsunami yelled. "Drop them!"

Both girls dropped the ends of the scrolls they were still holding. Iruka appeared in a puff of smoke.

"Iruka-sensei?" Sakura said.

Their old Academy instructor smiled at them. "I'm glad to see the three of you made it. Who is your friend?"

Tsunami put her arm around Karin's shoulders. "This is my cousin, Uzumaki Karin-chan. She got separated from her team after running afoul of the wildlife. Kusa hasn't treated her well and she would like to request asylum from Hokage-sama."

Iruka smile grew. His hand twitched. Naruto thought that if she were in her male form, the teacher would have ruffled her hair. However, Iruka had always paid more attention to "Naruto" than "Tsunami" for both good and ill.

"That's great," he said. "I'm sure Hokage-sama would be happy to talk to you after this part of the Exam is over."

"Actually, Iruka-sensei," Hinata said. "Something else happened in the forest that we need to talk to Hokage-sama about. If Hokage-sama is extremely busy, we could talk to the lead proctor, but I strongly suggest that you send for Hokage-sama."

Iruka looked quite startled, but nodded. He rapped on one of the unmarked walls of the room using a code that Tsunami did not recognize. The wall opened and the five of them stepped through passing one of the chuunin proctors.

"I'll lead you to a room where you can relax and then I'll pass your message up the chain. It may take some time before someone is able to see you."

The four kunoichi acknowledged him as they followed him.

* * *

About two hours after the four kunoichi had settled down in their room, there was a knock on their door. Karin had been offered her own room, but after having saved all of their lives, the Konoha kunoichi trusted her. On her part, Karin had not wanted to be all alone and definitely did not want to run into any Kusa shinobi if any of them made it to the tower. Tsunami activated her Mind's Eye Technique and recognized the chakra signature of the person outside their door.

"It's Jiichan!" she exclaimed.

"Jiichan?" Karin asked.

Sakura made sighed with exasperation. "She means Hokage-sama."

"You're the Hokage's granddaughter!?" Karin exclaimed.

"She's not," Sakura answered with a smirk. "He's just too kind to disabuse her of the notion."

Tsunami blew a raspberry at her teammate. "As one of the few who treated my brother with any amount of kindness when he was little, he's more than earned the title. Plus, he likes it when we call him 'Jiichan.'"

"Why would people be mean to your brother?" Karin asked with a frown.

"We'll explain later," Sakura said.

Tsunami opened the door and wrapped the Hokage in a hug.

He chuckled indulgently and said, "I'm happy to see you too, Tsunami-chan."

"Please, come in, Hokage-sama," Hinata invited.

Tsunami let go and allowed the Hokage to enter.

"Iruka-kun said that you needed to tell me about what happened in the forest, Hinata-chan?" he asked. "But first, why don't you introduce your friend."

"This is Uzumaki Karin-chan!" Tsunami exclaimed. "She's from my clan!"

"She certainly looks like an Uzumaki," the Hokage said thoughtfully. "You represent Kusa?"

Karin nodded nervously. "Yes, Hokage-sama. My mother took refuge in Kusa when I was quite young, but they never treated us well and worked my mother to death. When I encountered Tsunami-chan, I was hoping that I could switch allegiance to Konoha to be with her and her brother since I have nothing good as a future in Kusa—plus they're the only family I've found since my mother's death."

The Hokage nodded thoughtfully. "It's a possibility we can discuss after this part of the Exam is finished. What happened to your team, Karin-san?"

"They ran afoul of the large bears in the forest. I'm pretty sure they didn't survive. If it's not too much trouble, Hokage-sama, could we just hide that I made it out of the forest from Kusa?"

The Hokage nodded. "We can do that at least until the Exam is over. At that time we'll have an interview and decide if you have a future with Konoha." He looked over at Hinata. "Was there something else you needed to discuss, Hinata-chan? While this is potentially good news for Tsunami-chan and her brother it doesn't strike me as urgent."

"Yes, Hokage-sama," she said seriously. "We ran into a Konoha shinobi who attacked us and claimed that he was Orochimaru's agent."

The Hokage frowned and held up a hand. "Was Karin-san present?"

"She was observing at a distance, Hokage-sama," Hinata said. "We've already discussed what happened with her."

The Hokage nodded and reached into his robes and pulled out a strip of paper and slapped it onto the door. He channeled chakra into the seal on the paper. Tsunami recognized the seal for one of Konoha's more intricate privacy wards.

"It's best that I hear what happened myself before deciding who else should know," he explained.

Hinata explained how Kabuto had ambushed them and what he had said. She ground to a halt, however, when she realized she would have to admit that the traitor had stolen her eye.

Tsunami noticed her reluctance and put a hand on the other girl's shoulder. "It's alright, Nata-chan. Jiichan won't condemn you for that."

Hinata nodded, but could not make herself continue. To help out her friend, Tsunami explained about the stolen eyes and how Karin had saved them with her healing bloodline and she had replaced their eyes with her transformation "bloodline." She also gave him a report on what her clones had learned had happened to Team Seven.

The Hokage brought out his pipe and packed the bowl with tobacco. He lit it with a small burst of Fire Release chakra. He took a pull on the pipe to make sure the tobacco lit and then blew a puff of smoke.

Sakura frowned at the display, but she evidently did not have the guts to tell the Hokage not to smoke.

"This is quite disturbing news," the Hokage said finally. "Do you plan to have your clones stay with Team Seven, Tsunami-chan?"

Tsunami nodded. "I've made an agreement with Shino-san to help protect them, especially against Kabuto's traitorous teammates. I've told him that I won't help them get a scroll, but that my clones would help them otherwise."

"That's reasonable," the Hokage said encouragingly. "I'm happy that you decided to help your comrades."

"Jiichan?" she asked. "Do you recognize the description of the seal on Sasuke-san?"

The Hokage sighed with deep regret, taking another pull on his pipe. "I do. It's a very problematic cursed seal called the Cursed Seal of Heaven. Unfortunately, not even Jiraiya can remove it, but we do know a way to limit its influence."

"The Evil Sealing Technique?" Tsunami asked.

The Hokage nodded. "Do you know it?"

Tsunami nodded. "I do, but it will have little effect if it's applied while he's unconscious since it's linked to willpower. It's best to wait until he wakes up."

"When we first encountered Orochimaru's cursed seal ten years ago, only one of his ten victims survived," The Hokage said. "We don't know what enable her to survive: luck, chakra, strength of will. . ." He trailed off and then shook his head.

Sakura looked horrified. Tsunami felt equally sick inside. As Naruto he had become friends of sorts with the abrasive boy. She definitely wanted him to survive.

"I'm sure he'll survive, Kura-chan," she said. "He's too stubborn to die without avenging his clan."

Sakura gave her a weak smile. "True."

"Hokage-sama?" Hinata asked weakly. "Isn't it best to keep the details of this incident to yourself?"

The Hokage smiled at her indulgently. "Yes, I think so. The parts about the eyes being stolen and Tsunami-chan's ability to recreate and replace doujutsu are S-class secrets of the village. If Kumo, or any of the other hidden villages really, found out. . ." He shuddered. "Because of this, I want any uses of the Byakugan by Sakura-chan or Tsunami-chan to be kept completely hidden. As part of this, you are both forbidden from trying to learn or replicate the Gentle Fist. Kurenai-kun will need to know, but I will inform her myself in order to make sure she understands my decision and the implications."

"Thank you, Hokage-sama," Hinata said with earnest relief.

The Hokage gave her a gentle smile. "Think nothing of it, Hinata-chan. It is always pleasing to me when the needs of the individual correspond to the needs of the village. If there's nothing else, I'll see you when this portion of the exam is over. At that point, we can make arrangements for Karin-san's future."

Tsunami gave him another hug as the other girls said farewell to the village leader.

* * *

After the Hokage left, Tsunami was forced to endure grilling from Karin about why "her brother" was persecuted.

Naruto pushed aside her guilt once again and told her the same story she had first told the other two.

"So they hate him because of he was born the day the Kyuubi was defeated and he has the whisker birthmarks that remind them of the Fox?" Karin asked, confused and angry.

Tsunami nodded. "I receive some negative attention because he's my brother, but I was ten before I came to the village's attention and I've always hidden my whisker birthmarks."

"People are stupid," Karin said with a growl.

"Peer pressure saps IQ points," Tsunami agreed with a bitter smile. She tried to shift her smile to a more cheerful one and gave her clanswoman a light punch on her shoulder. "Things are a lot better now."

"Can you make yourself look like your brother?" Karin asked.

Tsunami nodded cautiously. She transformed herself mostly into the shape of her male self but carefully kept herself female. She noticed that Sakura had activated her Byakugan—probably to see if her chakra changed.

"Wow," Karin said. "He's cute!"

Naruto blushed and quickly changed back to the other girls' giggles.

* * *

The rest of the day was quiet. Only one other team had arrived before they had—the Suna team that contained Gaara. Tsunami and the others were only too happy to avoid them. Karin remained in their room, but the others made quick excursions out—primarily to get food from the cafeteria.

The next morning during breakfast, Tsunami received memories from a clone dispelling. The clone's purpose was to make sure she was aware of what had happened in the early morning. If she was sleeping while her Shadow Clones dispelled, their memories were buried in her subconscious and she had to actively look for them.

Kabuto's teammates—she still did not know their names—had arrived late at night. Her clones had sensed their arrival and had informed Shino and Kiba. Kiba had still been groggy from the concussion he had received, but was otherwise mostly recovered. Shino had sent his kikaichuu to stealthily incapacitate them while they were scoping out Team Seven's hiding spot. They were bound and tagged with some chakra suppression seals her clones made before they knew what was happening.

Tsunami made arrangements with one of the ANBU stationed at the tower to pick them up for questioning after Team Seven moved on.

About an hour after the first Shadow Clone dispelled, anther set of memories hit her. Sasuke had woken up radiating an evil, oppressive chakra. He had attempted to execute their prisoners and had dispelled a couple of her clones in the process. She waited anxiously for the conclusion of the scuffle. Thankfully, more memories hit her and she learned that her clones and Kiba had managed to talk Sasuke down by saying that they would suffer more under Morino's hand in the process of giving up all their secrets. A short while later another clone dispelled letting her know that her clones had talked Sasuke into letting them apply the Evil Sealing Technique after a frank discussion of the consequences of leaving it unopposed.

Unfortunately, sealing the cursed seal used up the last of the chakra that her clones had, but with all three of Team Seven's members awake and mostly healed, she thought they had a good chance of at least making it out of the forest alive.

Hinata and especially Sakura were relieved to hear that Team Seven was back on their feet. Since they did not have a lot of room to train their more active skills, Hinata helped Tsunami and Sakura get used to their new Byakugan eyes. After two days, the two were able to use their new doujutsu to identify all the people they knew in the tower by moving their focus through their field of vision. However, they still had issues with they Byakugan's 360° view and interpreting everything within their field of vision. Sakura had a large blind spot on her right side due to only having one Byakugan. This meant that she had to swivel her head and body to see everything, but being able to see chakra and to see through objects was still useful to her. They made a game of identifying the contestants as they arrived in the tower and introducing their chakra signatures to Karin.

While Karin could not "see" them like Team Eight could, she had incredible accuracy with her sensing ability and could figure out who they were talking about. Karin in return gave Tsunami some tips on using her Mind's Eye Technique.

Tsunami discovered that their were advantages to both the Mind's Eye and the Byakugan. The Byakugan could see what a person was doing physically, while the Mind's Eye could give more indications of a person's character and feelings due to how their chakra felt.

The first team to arrive after them was Hinata's cousin's team. They arrived at midday the day after Team Eight. Team Ten—containing Ino, Chouji, and Shikamaru—arrived early the day after that. Team Seven arrived late the same day as Team Ten. They thought that that might be it until a team from Ame arrived right before the deadline.

The three Konoha kunoichi, who had all become close to Karin during their time together, each gave their new friend a hug before heading off with the proctor who came to get them so they could participate in the end of the second stage.


	19. Chapter 18: Preliminaries

The eighteen chuunin hopefuls lined up in front of a slightly raised platform which had sculptures of two arms making a ram hand seal at its rear. The six teams were lined up in order of arrival, with the Suna team on the left and the Ame team on the right bracketing the four Konoha teams. Since Tsunami's team arrived second, they had the unenviable position of being between the Suna team and Hinata's cousin's team. The gourd-carrying boy gave off a sense of "unclean" bloodlust to her chakra senses. Hinata was valiantly trying to ignore her cousin's belligerent glares.

The Hokage stood in the center of the platform with the six senseis lined up behind him. Kurenai smiled at them encouragingly. The other Konoha senseis were also smiling—except for Kakashi, who was reading his book. The guy with the bowl-cut who had a mini clone on Hinata's cousin's team was particularly exuberant. The Suna and Ame senseis were stoic. The Ame sensei's chakra was restrained in such a way that Tsunami could barely feel it. If he were not for the Ame team's acceptance, Tsunami would not have guessed he was a shinobi. The proctors were lined up in front of the platform with half on either side of the Hokage.

The lead proctor, Anko, stepped in front of the Hokage and said, "Congratulations on completing—and surviving!—the second phase of the Chuunin Exams! However, since more than expected made it out of the forest, Hokage-sama will explain what needs to happen before we clear you for the Finals."

She stepped back into line with the other proctors and the Hokage explained that they needed to participate in a preliminary elimination round and how one of the purposes of the Chuunin Exams was to gain prestige for their village by doing well in front of the Daimyos and other prospective clients as a kind of mock war. There was some major grumbling over the "do or die" nature of the preliminaries, but the Hokage told them to "put up or shut up" in nicer terms.

The Hokage was in turn interrupted by proctor whose name was Gekkou Hayate and whose most prominent feature was his chronic cough. Hayate explained that the contestants would be "randomly" selected by an electronic display. Tsunami rolled her eyes. She doubted that it was truly random. They would face off against their opponent and fight until one of them had given up, been incapacitated, or killed. The proctor had the option to end a fight if he thought one of the contestants had been clearly defeated.

At that point letters flickered across the display until it showed: "Rock Lee of Konoha versus Kankurou of Suna."

The boy with the bowl-cut on Hinata's cousin's team shouted in excitement, "Yosh! My Youth must burn brightly to be chosen to go first!"

The sensei who looked almost identical gave him a "thumbs up" and shouted, "Show them the Power of Youth, Lee-kun!"

"Yes, Gai-sensei!" the boy shouted in response.

Hayate directed the other contestants, proctors, and senseis to adjourn to the balcony to watch the match.

The Suna shinobi dropped his bundle as he approached Lee in the center and began to insult his opponent even before the match began, but this made the strange boy more determined rather than intimidated. Tsunami's sensor skill told her that the real boy was in the bundle rather than whatever was talking to Lee, although some of his chakra was present in the figure. Perhaps this was one of Suna's famous puppets?

When Hayate started the match, Lee leapt forward and struck the figure of the Suna nin. Instead of the sound of flesh hitting flesh as Lee hit the arm of the figure, Tsunami heard the splintering of wood. Whatever technique made the puppet look human vanished as the figure was now obviously carved from wood.

The previously discarded bundle that contained the real Suna nin stood up and shouted, "That was a lucky shot, Konoha wimp!"

"Ah, one of Suna's famous puppeteers!" Lee exclaimed. "This will be an exhilarating trial of my Youth!"

Despite the Suna shinobi's bluster, Lee made short work of the puppet. He was simply too fast and strong for Kankurou to hit with the puppet's tools. Within minutes the puppet was reduced to a pile of wood and metal scrap.

"Do you realize what you've done!?" Kankurou shouted.

"Yes!" Lee exclaimed. "I have boldly displayed my Youth for all my peers to see!" He mimicked his sensei's earlier "thumbs up" gesture complete with sparkling smile.

The Suna nin pulled out a knife, and with a wordless scream, charged his opponent. Lee sidestepped the distraught shinobi and knocked him out with a tap to the back of the head.

As Kankurou was carried off the floor in a stretcher, the other contestants anxiously watched the display to see who was next. Hayate read the names that appeared, "Uchiha Sasuke of Konoha versus Haruno Sakura of Konoha!"

Sakura whimpered next to Tsunami.

Tsunami smiled encouragingly at her teammate. "Give it your best shot, Kura-chan. He'll never respect you if you give up now."

"I'll never beat him!" Sakura complained.

"Probably not," Tsunami acknowledged. "Sasuke-san is pretty tough, but you might get lucky and you might impress him if you do a good job, regardless."

"Just do your best, Kura-chan," Hinata said encouragingly.

Sakura steeled herself and joined Sasuke down on the floor. Ino jeered at her that she would look like a fool before Ino's "true love." Sakura ignored her and set her stance for her fight. She received a slight nod of acknowledgement from Sasuke in return.

When Hayate began the match, Sakura quickly jumped back to create space between her and Sasuke. She quickly wove one of the genjutsu that their sensei had taught her. Sasuke halted his steady advance and looked confused for a moment before his eyes turned red with the Sharingan and he stared at her with a smirk on his face.

Sakura frowned and pulled out a handful of kunai and flung them at her opponent. Sasuke withdrew his own kunai and deflected the ones that were thrown at him as he continued to advance. He closed to taijutsu range where they exchanged blows. Sakura actually did better than Tsunami had expected, as she had really taken to Kurenai's taijutsu style, but Sasuke was still better, even discounting the advantage the Sharingan gave him. In the end, Sakura ended up on the ground with a kunai at her throat.

"Yield," Sasuke said.

"I yield," Sakura said softly.

Sasuke stood up and glanced down at her with a blank expression and said, "You've gotten better." He turned and walked away without saying anything else.

Sakura turned to look at Ino and smirked. She got up and rejoined her teammates.

Tsunami put an arm around her friend's shoulder and said, "You did pretty good, Kura-chan. If you had gone against anyone that didn't have a doujutsu, I think you would have had a good chance of winning. Poor luck with the draw."

Hinata also murmured consolation to their teammate.

The display next displayed the names: Hyuuga Hinata of Konoha versus Hyuuga Neji of Konoha.

A brief flicker of sadness and trepidation flickered over Hinata's features before they were replaced by resolve. Tsunami and Sakura wished their teammate good luck as she made her way to the center of the bottom floor.

The pre-match "trash talking" was especially vicious on Hinata's cousin's part. Hinata herself merely answered him serenely and politely—refusing his "generous" offer to "save herself the embarrassment" of a humiliating defeat. He nattered on about how he was fated to win and that she would always be a "loser."

Tsunami gritted her teeth in anger. If there were anything that she had always wished she had had more of it was family. She hated that this idiot disrespected his own so much. She was under no illusion that the Hyuuga clan was "one big, happy family," but if any of them deserved love and respect it was Hinata. Not only was she a genuinely kind person, but as the heir she had a real chance to change the clan for the better.

For the first five minutes of the match the two Hyuuga looked pretty even on the surface. Tsunami could tell, however, that the cousin was just a little bit faster and a little bit more skilled. Eventually he managed to maneuver Hinata into a position where he was able to land a clean hit on her forearm. The redhead had been in enough spars with Hinata to know that the match was probably decided at that point. Sure enough, the one strike acted as the start of a positive feedback loop and the cousin began to be able to strike her more and more frequently until he managed a palm strike to her chest which launched her a short distance. Tsunmai's breath hitched until she saw her teammate's chest rise and fall.

The cousin approached her and stood a short distance away. "You see that you are no match for me, Hinata- _sama_." He snarled the honorific hatefully. "Your feeble attempts to improve yourself are just that: feeble. You should have quit while you had the chance. For your impudence, you must swear to give up being a shinobi or I will end you now."

"I will not," Hinata wheezed. "You must have seen that I _have_ improved."

"A meaningless improvement," the cousin said. "You are still Fated to be an inferior shinobi and an embarrassment to the Hyuuga clan. Swear."

Hinata shook her head and attempted to stand.

The anger that had been present on the cousin's face bloomed into full rage. He moved to attack her. Tsunami struggled within herself. She wanted to stop him, but knew it was better left to the proctors and jounin. She need not have worried because the cousin was surrounded by the four Konoha jounin sensei before he could take half a step.

"Favoritism for the Main House?" the cousin sneered.

"You're out of line, Genin," Kakashi snapped. "We would do the same for any of our comrades." Tsunami was mildly shocked by his response. She had never seen Kakashi act so seriously about anything other than his disgusting books.

"You have been acting most un-Youthfully, Neji-san" Gai, his own sensei, added sadly.

Kurenai looked enraged and Asuma-san looked disappointed. Tsunami wanted to yell at the jerk, but decided that if she spoke up now she would just embarrass the Hokage in front of the Ame and Suna nin.

The cousin haughtily walked off the floor with his head held high as Hayate announced him the winner, while Hinata was carried off in a stretcher. Tsunami wanted to go see her, but had to wait for her match. Sakura hurried off with Kurenai to the medical room to find out what the damage was.

The display announced the next match as "Gaara of Suna versus Oboro of Ame." The match was over in just a few seconds. Gaara summoned sand from his gourd and used it to crush the Ame nin who had been attempting to summon clones. The unfortunate Ame nin was left an unmoving pile of blood and crushed bones. Even more disturbing was the fact that the Suna nin seemed disappointed in the lack of effort it took. Instead he was staring hungrily at Sasuke and the Hyuuga cousin.

There had been an odd echo in his chakra as he used the sand—as if there were too sources of chakra. Tsunami wondered if he were Suna's jinchuuriki. It seemed likely from what her mother had told her about the Ichibi, Suna's Bijuu. Tsunami was deeply disturbed that it seemed that Suna had sent a clearly disturbed jinchuuriki to Konoha, presumably unannounced.

Aburame Shino was up next against Tenten, the female teammate of the Hyuuga cousin and the enthusiastic Rock Lee. Shino started off by trying to put distance between himself and the older genin. Tenten responded by saturating the air between them with various weapons she pulled out of a specialized storage scroll.

Shino kept himself in the match using misdirection—mostly by using some well-timed Replacements with Bug Clones. After several frustrating minutes for Tenten in which Tsunami could tell that the older kunoichi thought that she had the sly Aburame, Shino managed to maneuver a swarm close enough to her to engulf her.

Tenten tried in vain to swat the insects that covered her. When that failed, she resolved to keep fighting, but her moves were noticeably slower and eventually she dropped to the ground.

"Proctor," Shino proclaimed, "she is too exhausted to fight. Why? Because my kikaichuu have drained her of enough chakra to incapacitate her."

Just about all the genin still in the gallery looked disturbed. Ino looked especially affected. The only one that seemed immune was Gaara of Suna.

Tsunami smiled as the next match was announced by the display, "Tsunami of Konoha versus Mubi of Ame." While Konoha was not making a serious effort to hide her clan name, evidently the Hokage had decided to hide it from surface attempts at spying. Kurenai and Sakura were still checking up on Hinata, but Team Ten and Kiba all wished her luck.

The Ame nin wore a rebreather and a cloth mask wrapped around his upper head that covered his eyes and ears. Strangely, there was only one hole in the mask for one of his eyes. "You'll regret what happened to Oboro," Mubi proclaimed angrily.

Tsunami stared at him like he was stupid. "I'm from a different village than the candidate that killed your teammate," she responded.

"You're just unlucky that we have something to prove now," the Ame nin proclaimed.

Tsunami rolled her eyes, unimpressed with his bluster.

Ironically, the match began with them both making clones. As a matter of course, Tsunami used a Replacement with one of her Shadow Clones to obscure which one was the real her. Using her Mind's Eye, she could tell where the real Mubi was—under the stone floor. Her opponent had called out "Shadow Clone Technique" when he had created the clones, but her sensory technique could tell that they were a different type of clone. This was confirmed when one of her clones' attacks went through Mubi's clones.

Her only difficulty with her opponent's technique was that he was throwing kunai to correspond with attacks by his clones. Her Mind's Eye could not tell where the kunai were and the clones obscured them from her vision. Several of her own Shadow Clones had been "popped" by the kunai. She needed a way to force the real Mubi above ground. Luckily, her mother had shown her a seal that had been developed during the Third Shinobi War because Iwa shinobi liked to use similar techniques. The seal was simple enough that she could use the Chakra Seal Manifestation Technique with it.

She created a bunch more clones to make up for those that had dispelled. She Replaced herself with a clone on the other side of the room and then Flickered to just above where Mubi was. "Chakra Ground Saturation Technique!" she exclaimed as she slammed her palm in to the floor to cover the fact that she was using Chakra Manifestation and a seal. The seal, which actually _was_ called Chakra Ground Saturation Seal, formed under her palm and saturated the stone and the ground underneath it. Tsunami's chakra disrupted Mubi's technique, which was probably the Earth Release: Underground Projection Fish Technique, forcing him to come up.

She quickly engaged him in close-combat taijutsu. He was not bad at taijutsu for a genin, but she was much better. Within a minute she had him subdued.

As Hayate declared her the winner, she thought about going to check up on Hinata. She knew that she should stay and scout her opponents for the Third Exam, but she could not help but feel that visiting her friend and teammate was more important. Luckily, she saw that Kurenai and Sakura had returned.

"God job, Nami-chan," Sakura said.

"Thanks, Kura-chan," Tsunami replied.

Kurenai added her congratulations.

"How's Nata-chan?" Tsunami asked.

Sakura and Kurenai both frowned. "The med nin are 70% sure that she'll make a full recovery, but they say it will probably take a month," Kurenai said.

"Her jerk of a cousin messed her up pretty badly," Sakura added.

"He's a disgrace," Tsunami muttered. "If I were the Hokage, I'd pull him from the Exam and put him on probation over that stunt. Konoha does not condone murdering comrades."

Kurenai shook her head. "I can guarantee that he won't be getting promoted, even if he manages to win the Finals tournament, but I doubt he'll be told why other than that he 'did not exhibit the characteristics looked for in a chuunin of Konoha.'"

"Why not?" Tsunami demanded. "How is he supposed to learn if no one tells him?"

She did not like the jerk, but thought he should be told that he was a jerk, in detail. Then maybe he would not be a jerk anymore and Hinata could have more of a chance at a real family.

Kurenai sighed. "It's an unofficial part of the test for chuunin. If the candidate can't figure out what qualities are important for a chuunin besides than martial prowess by themselves, they don't deserve to make it."

Tsunami snorted and determined to tell him _something_ —even if it were not exactly that he had failed the exams when he attempted to murder a fellow Konoha nin.

The next match was Shikamaru versus Kiba.

Kiba immediately began blustering. "Alright, Akamaru! This will be easy. Lazy Bones has never managed to beat me!"

Tsunami shuck her head. This match would inevitably shake out different than an Academy taijutsu match. Shikamaru was very clever and an expert strategist. The only questions were if he was motivated enough to try and whether he had enough room to work with.

Kiba began the match by tossing a pill toward Akamaru, which caused him to turn red and more feral looking. Shika flung a handful of kunai at them in a wide arc. Both the Inuzuka and his puppy easily avoided the flung knives and charged him in a crude pincer formation.

Shikamaru started running in an arc around the room flinging kunai as he went in an apparent effort to put distance between himself and his opponents. The strategy did not succeed, however, because Kiba and Akamaru were faster than the Nara—even with the need to dodge kunai. Just as it looked like Kiba would catch Shika, the latter flashed a hand sign and seemingly teleported across the room.

Tsunami snickered. "He seeded the floor with Replacement fodder!"

Shikamaru visibly relaxed. "Running around the room was so troublesome," he grumped.

"Then stop running," Kiba growled.

"I would, but my mother threatened extra training if I didn't make it to the Third Round," Shika complained.

"You don't think she won't make you train for the Third Round if you make it?" Ino called out.

"Troublesome," the Nara muttered.

Kiba and Akamaru tried their pincer movement again, but Shikamaru Replaced another kunai. This happened several times until Shikamaru ended up in front of one of the stone arms. The faint shadow cast by the light fixtures behind the arms suddenly lengthened and snared both Kiba and Akamaru who were almost on top of each other with all their turning around.

"Shadow Possession Technique Complete!" drawled Shikamaru.

He drew a kunai and flipped it around. Kiba did the same thing in sync with him. Akamaru just pawed at the floor since he had a different body shape and no kunai pouch.

"Sorry, Akamaru-chan," Shikamaru muttered as he forced Kiba to club his puppy with the hilt of the knife.

"I don't need to do anything drastic to you, do I, Kiba-kun?" he asked.

Kiba growled in frustration. "No, you got me. I yield."

The next match was Chouji versus the last of the Ame nin: Kagari. Chouji used his Mult-size Technique and then the Human Bullet Tank Technique to try and mow down his opponent. Kagari used the same techniques that his teammates had: summoning clones and hiding in the ground. Tsunami was irritated that the whole team was so one dimensional—at least the Suna team's members had different specialties. Tsunami's Mind's Eye Technique was not good enough to tell that Kagari was hiding under the floor from up on the balcony, but it became pretty apparent when Chouji rolled through all the figures on the floor. For the first time that afternoon the Ame team's strategy worked. Chouji tired himself out by remaining in his Bullet Tank Technique for too long. Neither candidate could hurt each other while Chouji was a human bullet and Kagari was under the stone floor, but once Chouji released the technique he was a sitting duck for the other nin who had husbanded his strength more wisely.

The last match of the preliminaries was Ino versus Temari, the last of the Suna nin.

"When I destroy you, Sasuke-kun will know that I'm the one for him!" Ino declared.

Temari sneered at her. "You're a disgrace to actual kunoichi, _Fangirl_." Her lips twisted in disgust as she snarled the last word.

Ino rolled her eyes dismissively.

When Hayate gave the word, Ino launched a brace of shuriken. Temari negligently waved her fan, causing a blast of air to knock the missiles out of the air. She swung her fan again, more quickly, causing barely-visible blades of air to spin toward the other blonde. Despite her obsession with Sasuke, Ino still put in some practice time; she was quick and agile and was able to dodge the blades.

Temri continued to casually send blades of air at Ino, who was just able to avoid being slashed by the blades. Ino had no opportunity to do anything other than dodge. Tsunami noticed that Ino was being herded into a corner of the room where she would not have enough space to dodge. She hoped that the Suna girl was not as bloodthirsty as her teammate.

Finally, as Tsunami had expected, Ino ran out of room, an air blade took off most of her pony tail. A follow-up blast of air threw her into the wall with a heavy thud. Ino slumped onto the floor.

Temari approached her and stood over her. She prodded her with her fan, flipping her over. Ino looked up at her, dazedly.

"I hope you realize that I could have killed you whenever I wanted," the Suna kunoichi said. "However, I think making you look like a useless fool in front of your _love interest_ is a worse punishment. Go back to your makeup and flowers, _Fangirl_. You fail as a shinobi."

Tsunami glared at the Suna girl. It was true that Ino did not take being a shinobi as seriously as she should, but she was a rookie genin. There was a reason why they were given easy missions. It was true that Ino was not really ready for the Chuunin Exams. Her team had probably only made it this far due to Shikamaru's intelligence. However, Suna was supposed to be their ally; they should not be sending bloodthirsty psychos to the Exams.

Hayate had all the winners come down and choose a paper with a number on it out of a jar. Tsunami drew number seven. Ibiki, from the first exam, wrote down each contestant with their number. She was curious as to what the numbers meant. She decided it probably had to do with their first match up for the Finals. She idly noted that her main competition, Gaara, Sasuke, and the Hyuuga cousin, had drawn one, two, and nine, respectively.

After a moment, Ibiki announced, "The tournament matchups are as follows: Gaara of Suna will face Hyuuga Neji of Konoha; Uchiha Sasuke of Konoha will face Kagari of Ame; Aburame Shino of Konoha will face Tsunami of Konoha; Rock Lee of Konoha will face Temari of Suna; Nara Shikamaru of Konoha will have a first-round bye. You will have a month to prepare before the tournament will commence. Good luck."

Tsunami rolled her eyes. She wondered if anyone believed Ibiki was not manipulating the matchups.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I again decided to summarize a lot of the dialog. I figure that for most readers this is not the first time they've read about the Chuunin Exams.

For the curious, yes, Orochimaru ganked and replaced the Ame sensei since Kabuto's team did not make it through the Forest of Death. I don't think that tidbit will come up anywhere else in the actual story.


	20. Chapter 19: The Godfather

Kurenai congratulated Tsunami again on passing on to the final round of the exam.

"What's the plan for the next month, Sensei?" Tsunami asked.

"Training," she replied. "I'll help you prepare for the Finals as well as continue with Sakura-chan's training while we wait for Hinata-chan to recover.

Tsunami nodded. Most of her "real" training would be with her mom will she slept, but Kurenai would have some useful insight that could be used to refine the techniques that she "found" in "old clan scrolls."

"We need to go and get Karin-chan," Tsunami said.

"Hokage-sama told me to tell you that Karin-san must be interviewed before she has free rein of the village," her sensei said carefully.

Naruto frowned and then sighed. She should have realized this would happen. She hoped that Karin had a better first interview than she had had as Tsunami.

Kurenai led Tsunami and Sakura back to the village where they hugged each other before separating for their own houses.

When Naruto got back to her apartment, she promptly changed back to her birth form. He sighed. He truly did not mind being a girl and if it were taken from him somehow, he would miss it, but being one for long periods of time without changing made him anxious. He wondered if the opposite were true now too? He had never been in his birth form for more than a day since he had started the experiment with the Hokage. Since graduating from the Academy, he now mostly was a boy while relaxing around the apartment and a girl while with her team. The only consistent exception to this was when he practiced with Kakashi's team.

He wondered how this affected him. He was mostly the same in either of his standard bodies, but hormones _did_ have an effect. As a boy, it was a little easier to lose control of his emotions and he lost like his temper a little more easily, but as a girl, her emotions persisted longer and it was a little bit harder to regain control of her temper once she lost it. Of course, this rule of thumb did not apply as well around the time when she was menstruating. He considered himself lucky that she did not menstruate as frequently as other girls because of time spent as a boy. He thought that switching back and forth, might make the effects of his hormones on his emotions were more obvious to him than they were to most people. Sometimes he missed his pre-puberty days when his emotions were simpler to control. He shuddered as he thought that it would only get worse; he was only twelve.

* * *

That night when he appeared in his mindscape his mother enveloped him in a hug. He had not visited her in the Forest of Death because he was worried about being alert enough while sleeping; he usually did not visit her while on missions—a fact that drove her crazy with worry, but that she understood. In the tower the first night, he had not visited her because his clones were watching Team Seven. After that, he had not visited because he was worried that she would be angry over Kabuto getting the drop on him and mutilating him—and their experiments to recover. He had been tempted not to visit tonight, but could not bring himself to worry her more—plus, he missed her.

After she let him go, he described what had happened in the Exam. She laughed at what had happened to the Oto team and was delighted to hear about Karin. She raged at what Kabuto had done. The tension he had been holding released when he realized she was not angry with him for being reckless. She was fascinated to hear about Karin's bloodline ability.

"It sounds like your newly found cousin is descended from Uzumaki Aika," she said. "She was the first to have that ability and it manifests among her descendants regularly."

"How closely related are we?" he asked excitedly.

"I'm not sure," his mother responded. "Actually, you're descended from Aika too, but the ability never manifested in the Daimyo's family for some reason. If I were to guess, however, I'd say you're probably third or fourth cousins."

When she heard about how he and Karin had solved Hinata's eye problem, she beamed at him. "That's very clever of you, Naruto-kun," she said. Then she turned serious. "Be very careful using it. The Hyuuga don't tolerate losing the Byakugan _at all_." She sniffed. "Plus, you have a perfectly serviceable Uzumaki sensing technique."

He rolled his eyes. "I know, Mom. It was a spur of the moment idea; I'm not sure how much I'll use it. Plus, I think Hinata–chan was happy to share."

She glared at him for his flippancy. He shrunk into himself until she stopped. Nobody could glare like the Red-Hot Habanero. While he had never seen her in full rage, he had an inkling of how she had gotten the nickname.

When he told her about the preliminary match, she smiled at him proudly and hugged him tightly. "I'm so proud of you, my child!" she gushed. "The Chuunin Exam Finals as a rookie!"

He blushed. "My opponent was a push over. . ."

"Nonsense," she stated. "It's true that he was one of the easier opponents, but dealing with that sicko, Kabuto, makes up for it."

"Will you help me prepare for the tournament, Mom?" he asked. "Kurenai-sensei is good for our team, but she doesn't really know my style."

His mom gave him the biggest smile yet and gave him a crushing hug. "Of course, Naru-kun," she said. "I'd love to help you."

He told her about who was in the tournament. They started with strategies and tactics for fighting Aburame, but they both made sure to include ways to deal with out-of-control jinchuuriki.

* * *

The next morning Tsunami went to see the Hokage to see how things were going with Karin.

"Jiichan," she said sternly after he had engaged his privacy seals, "You better hope that Scarface is treating Karin-chan better than he treated me."

The Hokage leaned back and sighed. "As much as I want to believe that Uzumaki-san is innocent of being a plant, I just can't take that chance. You're too important to trust to that kind of blind faith."

"So, you admit that she's my cousin?" Tsunami asked archly.

The Hokage rolled his eyes as he did whenever she questioned him adversarially like this. "We did a blood test first thing. She is an Uzumaki and probably a third cousin."

"And what's this about me being important?" she said. "I've never been treated like I was important."

He snorted. "Do you think just anybody can see me whenever they want? You're like a grandchild to me and so I give you as many of the same protections that Konohamaru-kun has without being too obvious about it. That doesn't even consider the other factors."

She arched another eyebrow at him, but even under the privacy seals he was not going to come out and say that she was the hidden child of the Yondaime or the village's supposedly hidden jinchuuriki. The second thing was so well known that it was hardly worth obscuring other than the fact that she was actually her "brother."

The Hokage leaned back and then pulled out his pipe and started filling it. "What you really want to know is when Karin-san will be released to you, correct?"

She nodded.

"Three days, if nothing unexpected comes up." He lit his pipe with an E-rank fire technique.

She frowned. "Why so long?"

"While I'm sure that Karin-san would rather not be detained," he said with a wry smile. "I'm also sure that she would rather avoid our more rigorous interview processes. Doing it this way allows us to let her have some comfort and breaks."

Tsunami sighed. "Alright, Jiichan. If it has to be this way."

He smiled sadly. "I'm afraid it does." His smile turned amused. "I've had a request for your 'brother' to visit the hot springs."

Tsunami's jaw dropped, being quite startled. "The owner or manager wants Naruto-kun to visit?" Maybe they had heard about her seals and wanted a privacy shield installed?

If anything, the Hokage's amusement deepened. He blew out some smoke. "No. One of the. . . frequent patrons would like to meet your 'brother.'"

It did not take Tsunami long to figure out who he was talking about. "So, my delinquent godfather has finally decided to make an appearance, huh?"

The Hokage leaned back and took another puff. "Do not judge Jiraiya-kun too harshly. He has felt that he could serve you best by making sure that your family's foreign enemies did not find you and by not drawing attention to you. He did provide the money that has supported you since you were orphaned."

"Money was the least of what I needed," she said bitterly. She knew that was not really true, but she could not change the way she felt. "Visiting me in disguise was well within his capabilities."

The Hokage's silence indicated to her that she was not wrong.

"He does not get to drop into my life and pretend to be my godfather now that I don't need one," she snapped.

She glanced at the Hokage. A touch of sadness was visible in his eyes.

"I may have hinted to him obliquely that he ought to check in on your 'brother' within the next few days," he said.

She shrugged as she turned to leave. "See you later, Jiichan."

"Good luck preparing for the tournament, Tsunami-chan," he said to her. "I know you'll do well and make Konoha proud."

* * *

Since Hinata was recovering at the hospital, Sakura was her only teammate at training. Sakura graciously agreed to help Tsunami train for the Finals. Kurenai set up a schedule for them to follow. This consisted of physical training the first thing in the mornings, followed by a couple of hours of discussing tactics and planning. Afternoons were to be dedicated to practicing her skills and spars with Sakura and Kurenai. By this point, Tsunami was comfortable enough with her team to show them more of her Uzumaki-specific skills: Chakra Seal Manifestation and her combat seals.

After team training was done, Tsunami decided to do something she had been thinking of off and on since the preliminaries: warn her friends about Suna's unstable jinchuuriki. Since she was more familiar with all the people she was going to warn as a boy, she changed into her boy body.

Since Sasuke was likely to face him first of all her friends and acquaintances, Naruto went looking for him. Unfortunately, he could not find either Sasuke or Kakashi anywhere. Frowning, he went to look for Shino. He found him at the Aburame compound.

After his brief explanation to Shino about what "his sister" had observed, the stoic Aburame said seriously, "Thank you, Naruto-san. I will take your sister's warning into account and plan accordingly."

When he asked about Sasuke, Shino said that Kakashi had taken him out of the village to train at an undisclosed location.

Shikamaru was cloud watching in an open area of the Nara compound.

"Troublesome," he muttered after Naruto had explained. Then he shrugged. "If I make it that far, I'll just forfeit. Based on their match-up scheme he would be my third fight. I'll have already passed or failed by then."

Naruto shook his head and chuckled. He really should not have expected anything else from the lazy boy.

He briefly considered telling the Lee boy, but decided not to. Neither of his identities knew the boy and he was worried that it would come off as an attempt at intimidation (i.e, trying to get him to quit). What ultimately decided him was the fact that based on his observations of the boy, he felt that it would only pump him up. He had already decided not to tell Hinata's jerk of a cousin. He did not deserve any warnings and he doubted that he would look favorably on one anyway.

* * *

Two days after his visit to the Hokage, Naruto's evening was interrupted by a loud, forceful knock on the door. Nobody visited him at his apartment—not even his teammates. Frowning, he changed into his girl form and her persistent clone swapped to his boy form. If she needed to defend herself, better to do it in the form that was registered as an active shinobi.

She activated her monitoring seal and got a view of her visitor. It was a tall bulky man with white, bushy hair that was long in the back and an outlandish outfit that included a headband with the kanji for oil on it and a large scroll strapped to his back. From the photo album in her mom's house, she knew this was Jiraiya, her so-called godfather.

She opened her chakra senses and then the door and rested her hand on the invisible seal that activated her apartment's security.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Tsunami," she replied with a frown. "I live here. Who are you?"

His face brightened and she knew she had made a mistake.

"I'm glad you asked!" he said as he began a shuffling dance. "From the East to the West! From the North to the South! The one the men want to be and the one the women want to be _with_! I'm the famous Toad Sage of Mount Myouboku! The fabulous, awe-inspiring, ever-gallant, Jiraiya!" He ended his performance with his arms open. It was as awful as her mom had said.

She rolled her eyes and said, "What do you want?"

He pouted and then looked past her.

"Hey, Naruto-kun," he said with a smile. "I came to see you. Won't you invite me in?"

"I'm hardly in the practice of inviting strange, old men into my apartment at night," her clone drawled.

"I'm not old!" Jiraiya whined.

"You look like an old, wrinkly pervert," her clone said.

The old man brought a hand up and proclaimed, "I'm not a pervert! I'm a super pervert!"

Tsunami arched an eyebrow while inside she was trying not to giggle. _He had actually said that in front of a pre-teen girl!_ His buttons were too easy to push, just like her mom had said.

"You think I'm going to let you in after you admitted that?" she said incredulously.

"Yeah," her clone added. "I'd be worried about my sister's virtue."

Jiraiya's expression hardened as he repeated, "Sister?"

Tsunami pumped chakra into the security seal, turning on its active mode. She did not think she was in any real danger from her godfather, but did not want her apartment destroyed if he made an issue of it. Chakra shimmered in the doorway as the seals on the doors and walls became visible, the Uzumaki swirl that acted as the base matrix gleamed in the fading sunlight. She concentrated on his chakra to try and figure out what he would do.

Jiraiya stepped back and examined the seal while stating coldly, "You don't have a sister."

"How would you know?" her clone said equally coldly.

Jiraiya's chakra flickered, but he kept his face impassive. "I was a close friend of your parents."

Pure spite lanced through her as she said, "I doubt it, else you'd have shown up before now."

His chakra flickered again. Tsunami thought she recognized guilt, shame, and sadness before it steadied again.

"Duty has kept me out of the village," he said.

"What about your duty to us?" her clone asked coldly.

"I don't have a duty to her, Naruto-kun," he said, "only to you."

A spike of sadness pierced her heart upon hearing her godfather say that; she could not help it. She knew he did not know her true circumstances and that this was the first time they had met since she had been a baby, but it still hurt.

"That was cold," her clone said as he moved forward and put a hand on her shoulder.

Jiraiya shrugged and said, "This seal won't stop me for very long."

It was probably true. Her mom told her she was talented, but she was only twelve and the Toad Sage had studied seals for around forty years.

"Do you really think I'll talk to you if you destroy my apartment and hurt the only real friend I've ever had?" her clone asked.

The sad thing was that it was more or less true. As Naruto, her only real friends were her clones. Naruto was friendly with Kiba, Shikamaru, Chouji, and Shino, but nothing more. Sasuke may be in the process of becoming his real friend, but it did not measure up to the friendships she had with Hinata and Sakura as Tsunami. Tsunami's friends were politely distant to her when she was Naruto.

"What do you suggest I do?" Jiraiya asked. "I don't feel comfortable leaving you here with an imposter."

"Talk to Hokage-sama," Tsunami said. "He'll vouch for me."

Jiraiya looked at her appraisingly for a few moments before nodding. "I'll do that."

The old man left and she shut the door with a sigh.

"That was a lot harder than I thought it would be," she said.

Her clone wrapped her in a hug. "I know," he said. And he did. He was she, after all.

* * *

The next day, after Tsunami's practice session with Kurenai and Sakura, an ANBU dropped off a note to go see the Hokage. It told her she could bring Naruto or come by herself at her pleasure. She knew it was about Jiraiya. Her mom had not said much about him last night other than to say that he had a good heart, even if he was supremely annoying at times.

With a sigh, she headed to the Hokage Tower. She supposed it was better to get this over with. She elected not to make or send for a clone, figuring it was best to keep the focus on herself as Tsunami.

She noticed Jiraiya sitting on the edge of the Hokage's desk as she entered the office. The Hokage activated the privacy seals as she entered.

"Hello, Jiichan!" she caroled. She looked over at Jiraiya and then added, "Ero-chan," with a sniff.

Jiraiya blinked as she used her mother's nickname for him in just about the same manner that her mom often had. Her mom had had her practice that sniff.

"Now, now," the Hokage scolded lightly. "Surely Jiraiya-kun hasn't had time to earn your ire just yet."

She looked at him incredulously. Surely he knew Jiraiya well enough to know that the man needed very little time to get into trouble—especially with a girl. She sniffed again. "He was quite rude to me when he visited our apartment last night, Jiichan."

The Hokage sighed. "Well, we can't have that now, can we?" He shook his head and looked at his errant student. "Jiraiya-kun, apologize to Tsunami-chan."

Jiraiya exploded, throwing his arms in the air. "Sensei! You know she's not Naruto-kun's sister!"

The Hokage took out his pipe and started to stuff tobacco into its bowl. "On the contrary, Jiraiya-kun. Tsunami-chan and Naruto-kun share the exact same parents. The how, however, is complicated. . ." He looked over at Tsunami and took a few puffs of his pipe. "I highly recommend that you show him."

Naruto sighed as she looked over at her errant godfather who was looking back and forth between her and the Hokage. "Fine," she said petulantly, "but only because you asked, Jiichan."

She changed back to her birth form.

"So, _Godfather_ ," he sneered. "What made you finally seek me out?"

"Naruto-kun!?" Jiraiya exclaimed.

"Of course," he replied smugly. "Uzumaki Tsunami is just an alias I adopted to make my life easier. I'm just awesome enough to be both of me at once."

Jiraiya stared at him with his mouth open before shutting it with a snap and starting to chuckle. "This is great! My godson can enter the women's baths to peep and no one ever knows! I'm so proud of you, my little pervert-in-training!"

"What!? No!" Naruto exclaimed. "I'm not a pervert! When I'm a girl, I'm really a girl! I even have monthlies!"

Jiraiya cocked an eyebrow at the Hokage.

The older man removed his pipe and chuckled. "It's true, she came to me all distraught when they began. Nearly removed a year off of my life trying to figure out how to explain menarche to my young surrogate _grandson_. Luckily she caved and told me she'd already had it explained to her."

Things clicked in Naruto's mind and he pointed at the Hokage and exclaimed, "This is revenge for that, isn't it? You knew he'd react this way, didn't you?"

The Hokage chuckled again and said, "You wouldn't deny an old man his small revenge, would you Naruto-kun? I've been waiting for this moment for almost a year."

Naruto rolled his eyes and said, "Whatever, Jiichan."

"How is this possible?" Jiraiya asked. "No one's Disguise Technique is that good!"

The Hokage said, "We think it's due to Naruto-kun's special condition. Supposedly, his mother's technique was this good as well, but she never told anyone for fear that it would land her in Infiltration and Seduction. Similarly, Naruto-kun's skill is secret to relieve him from being pressured into that and to allow him his little game."

Naruto frowned. "It's hardly a game when being Tsunami allows me the peace and freedom I've been lacking."

The Hokage blew out another puff of smoke and said, "As you say, Naruto-kun." He could see a small touch of sadness in the old man's eyes.

Feeling slightly uncomfortable, Naruto turned to glare at the younger old man. "What brings _you_ around, Ero-chan? I thought you were too busy to bother with me."

A flash of regret and sadness flashed on Jiraiya's face.

Both older men said, "Naruto-kun. . ." Jiraiya's voice was filled with sadness and the Hokage's voice was gently scolding.

Naruto glared at the two men before focusing on the Hokage. "Fine," he snapped. "I won't shut him out as a favor to you, Jiichan." He turned to the Toad Sage. "But you're not my godfather anymore. You squandered that opportunity, Ero-chan. However, if you want to visit me and tell me stories about my parents and teach me some tricks you've learned in your _long_ life, I won't turn you away." He smirked. "You can be the slightly senile uncle that makes everyone a little uncomfortable but you have to put up with."

He turned back into his girl form and walked toward the door. She looked over her shoulder and called out. "See you later, Jiichan, Ero-jichan."

"A moment, Tsunami-chan," the Hokage said. "Karin-san will be released from her interviews by the time you get home."

"You haven't been holding my newly-discovered cousin hostage until I agreed to meet with this guy, have you, Jiichan?" Tsunami asked with a frown.

The Hokage laughed as he shook his head. "No, I just thought this should be resolved before you picked up a new houseguest. I've been leaning on Jiraiya-kun to meet with you sooner rather than later once he told me he wanted to meet with you. He would have put it off until the end of your Exam break if I hadn't."

She rolled her eyes. "You're lucky that Jiichan is looking out for you, Ero-chan," she growled.

A she exited the room, she heard the Hokage chuckling again and Jiraiya muttering, "That boy is _way_ too much like his mother, not even considering this special skill. . ."


	21. Chapter 20: Cousins

**Author's Note:** Some reviewers have noted that I occasionally use "Naruto" to describe him when he's female. This is intentional and is supposed to reinforce that they are the same person. My apologies for not being good enough as a writer to show this in-text.

* * *

Naruto quickly hurried home. She was quite excited to see her newly discovered cousin again. She wondered if Karin was already there. Since she had used the Body Flicker in the preliminaries, there was no further need to refrain from using the technique. Most people would assume Kurenai had taught her. Kurenai would assume, correctly, that she had picked it up with her clan techniques. In truth, the only reason she had refrained from using it was because Sakura and Hinata did not know it. She would have to ask Kurenai if she thought they were ready for it. It was too useful for getting around not to teach them, provided they had the reserves for it.

She arrived at her door and paused to sense who was inside her apartment. To her disappointment, the only one she could sense was her long-term clone. As she reached for the doorknob, she felt the buildup of chakra that signaled an incoming Body Flicker. She quickly turned to see who it was. An ANBU appeared in a swirl of leaves with a hand on Karin's arm.

"Uzumaki-san," the ANBU said, "your cousin now has freedom of the village under your supervision. Please instruct her on what is expected of Konoha residents."

Tsunami nodded in acknowledgement. The ANBU quickly left via another Body Flicker.

"Tsunami-chan!" Karin exclaimed.

"Karin-chan!" she returned as they looked at each other. Tsunami was not sure how cousins were supposed to great each other. Hinata and her cousins were all quite formal with each other. While she had no desire to emulate the Hyuuga, she did not want to be too familiar either. Evidently, Karin did not know what to do either, since she just stood there as well.

Tsunami quirked her lips and scolded herself internally over the slight awkwardness. "Let's go inside and you can meet my brother," she said.

Karin perked up at that which made Naruto slightly nervous. Steeling herself, she opened the door and entered her apartment.

Being her, her clone was able to sense them outside and was standing by the entrance to the hall that led to the two bedrooms waiting for them. That reminded her that she would need to pick up another futon for Karin. The rooms weren't that spacious, but they could easily accommodate two futons. It looked like "Tsunami" would be getting a new roommate. It was slightly inconvenient to not have as much space, but having a real relative living with her more than made up for it. Since she usually spent her evenings in her birth form, it was her clone that would have to deal with it real time anyway. Although… having a roommate could be fun; she would have to think about it.

"Cousin!" Karin squealed and pounced on her clone and wrapped him in a hug. Tsunami was somewhat taken aback. Karin had not acted like this before. Her clone stiffened and looked uncomfortable. He looked at her pleadingly. Tsunami began to rethink whether she would be male around Karin or not. Unfortunately, if she wanted to be in her birth form much at all, she would have to. She was about to say something when she noticed the edges of Karin's mouth quirk in amusement.

"Stop teasing my brother, Karin-chan," she scolded.

"Ahhh," Karin whined exaggeratedly. "I can tell he needs some feminine teasing." She rested her head against the clone's chest and then it jerked up and she let go.

"Your chakra signatures are almost the same!" she exclaimed. "Why are your chakra signatures nearly identical?"

Tsunami fidgeted nervously while trying to think of an excuse. Her clone shot her a look that told her that he was leaving the explanations to her. She supposed it was one of the "perks" of being the "real one."

"In fact," Karin said, "only your yin-yang balance is different. What's going on here?" She alternated between glaring at each of them.

"Don't look at me," the clone said. "I'm only a Shadow Clone."

Tsunami glared at her clone. Karin turned all of her attention to Tsunami. Her traitorous clone took the opportunity to get as far from Karin as was possible and still stay in the room.

"I didn't think it was possible for a person to sense that," Tsunami said in order to stall.

"I am a truly exceptional sensor," Karin said proudly. "Now tell me what's going on. Are you really a boy or a girl?"

"I was born a boy," Tsunami admitted. "Naruto is my real name. I stumbled upon my transformation bloodline several years ago and decided to use it to escape the stigma of being me part time."

"You mean where they treat you like the Kyuubi?" she asked.

Tsunami nodded.

"Does your transformation bloodline make you a real girl?" Karin asked.

Tsunami nodded again. "Monthlies and all. The medic nin think I can even get pregnant." She shuddered. While at times she wanted to be a mother—she blamed her hormones—the fact was that she was still the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, as far as she knew, meant that she would never allow herself to risk releasing it due to pregnancy. This was besides the fact that she could not see herself letting _anyone_ put _anything_ in _there_. Being able to mother the children she fathered would have to satisfy her mothering instinct.

"Who knows about your double life?" her cousin asked curiously.

"Jiichan, Ero-jichan, Kurenai-sensei, and you as far as I know," Tsunami replied.

"Jiichan is what you call Hokage-sama, right?" Karin asked.

Tsunami nodded.

"Who's Ero-jichan?" Karin asked.

"Jiraiya-baka," she growled in response.

Karin's jaw dropped. "You call one of the Sannin 'Ero-jichan' and 'Jiraiya-baka?'" she asked incredulously.

Tsunami snorted. "Please," she said derisively. "The man is a self-proclaimed 'super pervert' and he neglected his duties as my godfather until now."

Karin raised her eyebrow, but said nothing for a few moments. Finally, she asked, "Sakura-chan and Hinata-chan don't know?"

Tsunami dropped her gaze. "I know I should tell them, and I will as soon as the Exams are over."

Karin simply nodded and an awkward silence developed between them.

Tsunami sighed and flopped down on her couch. She leaned forward and rested her forehead in her palms and her elbows on her knees. She massaged her forehead. She could not believe she had already ruined things with the first relative she had met. It figured that things were going too well for her.

Tsunami felt the couch shift and figured that Karin had sat down next to her. She looked up and her cousin looked at her sympathetically.

"I know what it's like to want to get out of a bad situation," Karin told her. "I don't know for sure if I would have turned myself into a boy to escape from Kusa, but I probably would have done it if it would have let me escape with my mom."

"You don't think I'm weird or disgusting?" Tsunami asked. She could not keep an edge of pleading out of her voice.

Karin giggled. "I don't think you're disgusting. Weird, on the other hand… But since all shinobi are weird to one degree or the other, I won't hold it against you."

Naruto could not help the surge of relief and affection that flooded her. She lightly slapped her cousin's shoulder. "You're a shinobi too," she said. "What's your weirdness?"

"You'll just have to find out, won't you, Cuz?" Karin responded playfully.

They grinned at each other and fell into silence again. This time it was a lot less awkward. Karin ruined it by asking, "So… Hinata-chan likes male-you, but doesn't know you're really him."

Tsunami shrugged. "Nothing can happen between us because of her family—at least for the foreseeable future. They would slap their slave mark on her if they thought she was dishonoring them by associating like that with the village pariah. I couldn't do that to her."

"Would you if it weren't for that?" Karin asked.

"I don't know," Tsunami admitted. "I like Hinata-chan a lot. She's probably my best friend, but she holds the male-me on a pedestal. I'm not who she thinks I am."

"What do you mean?" Karin asked.

"The reason she admires me is that she thinks that I never give up despite being constantly labeled a failure," Tsunami explained. "She was nearly devastated when I told her that male-me was going to be a sealmaker instead of a full-time shinobi. I had to assure her that male-me had not given up on his goals or she would have gone catatonic. I like that she has a lot of faith in me, but I don't know if I can deal with the expectations of being her idol. I like the relationship that female-me has with her a lot better."

"So, I can pursue you without stepping on her toes?" Karin asked with a teasing twinkle in her eyes.

Tsunami rolled her eyes. "We're only twelve. I'm not ready to date."

"It's never too early to stake my claim on the future Uzumaki Clan Head," Karin replied cheerfully. Tsunami could see that while her cousin was mostly teasing, there was more than a little determination behind it. She could tell that if she tried to tell her not to flirt with her, Karin would not listen. Maybe if she set up some rules, she could keep it from getting too out of hand?

"Fine," Tsunami said. "But no flirting with female-me. I don't want you doing anything that might blow my cover."

"I can see that," Karin said, "for public at least."

Tsunami glared at her. "Not in private either—I don't want you developing bad habits. Besides… I change into a girl to escape from certain types of stress. If we're going to be sharing a room, I don't want to have to worry about you engaging with that type of teasing or flirting with me in my sanctuary."

"Okay," Karin said slowly. "I can sort of see that. Isn't it confusing though? You're the same person in either body, right?"

Tsunami nodded. "I am, but I guess you could say that 'Naruto' and 'Tsunami' are both roles that I play. It helps that I don't really interact closely with the same people in my different roles. Even in the Academy, I had different people that I hung out with."

"What about the real you?" Karin asked.

Naruto put up a fake smile and said, "When I figure out who he or she is, I'll let you know."

"Oh, Tsunami-chan," Karin said compassionately. She wrapped her in a hug. "I'll help you."

They both sniffled a little bit, before Karin released her. "Tell me about these Shadow Clones. They're pretty amazing. I couldn't tell that one of you was a clone." She tilted her head toward the clone that standing awkwardly near the wall. Tsunami could not blame him. _She_ felt awkward, she could only imagine what it would be like to have to watch it.

Grateful for the change of topic, Tsunami began to describe the Shadow Clone Technique and how she had used seals to make a persistent clone. After she describe the memory sharing aspect, she could feel a certain amount of satisfaction in Karin's chakra.

Naruto's training for the Finals progressed as it had prior to Karin's release. His relationship with his cousin settled into a comfortable routine once the other Uzumaki figured out Naruto's limits and what level of flirting would make him run. At first, Naruto condemned his long-term clone to dealing with her as a male, but he began to miss his "boy time" and once she figured out his limits Karin was not _that_ bad. The only real discordant note was Tsunami's next interaction with Jiraiya.

"No!" she told him. "I refuse."

"Come on, Tsunami-chan," he wheedled. "Your 'other chakra' can save your life if you need it."

* * *

Tsunami did not want to admit the real reason she was adamantly against using the Kyuubi's chakra; she was afraid that if she managed to access the Kyuubi's chakra it would disrupt her mother's "home" inside her mindscape. After all, it was only after her mom "woke up" that all signs of her being the jinchuuriki disappeared. However, she did not trust her supposed godfather enough to explain it to him. So far only the Hokage knew about her mother's presence in her mindscape.

"I said 'No,' Ero-jichan," Tsunami replied.

Jiraiya sighed. "At least give me a good reason, Tsunami-chan. The bijuu's chakra could be a fantastic tool, not just for you, but for the village as a whole."

Tsunami looked at him like he was crazy. Did he really think the village would appreciate her using the Kyuubi's chakra—even in its defense? She supposed that he had been mostly absent since the Kyuubi's attack. She doubted she could make him understand just how much the village despised anything to do with the Kyuubi if he did not already comprehend it.

"Did you know that no sensor has been able to sense the Kyuubi's chakra in me since my seal matured when I was five?" she asked. "The only evidence for me being a jinchuuriki at all is my seal and it's so complex that nobody can tell exactly what it does without a _lot_ of study. Since my clan's destruction there are really no _true_ sealmasters left, despite your own skill. At least at this point in my life, anonymity is more valuable to me as a jinchuuriki than a tenuous control over a minor portion of the Kyuubi's chakra."

Jiraiya frowned. "I can see your point, but that won't always be true. If Konoha goes to war, we'll need our jinchuuriki."

She sighed. "I've read my mother's journals. She used the Kyuubi's chakra less than a handful of times and most of those times she could have avoided it with a little more care. I intend to be good enough that I won't need it at all. My father was considered more dangerous than my mother despite not being a jinchuuriki. Uchiha Madara managed to control all nine Bijuu and then the Shodai and Aunt Mito managed to defeat all of them. The Bijuu are not the end-all and be-all of shinobi power and ability, Ero-jichan. I want to be as great as my father and the founders of the village on my own terms."

Jiraiya smiled fondly. "That's a great dream, Brat. Madara and the Shodai had the advantage of bloodline abilities. Are you sure you're up for it?"

She nodded. "Tell me truly, Jichan. Would using the Kyuubi's chakra have any effect on my chances for passing the Chuunin Exams?"

He shook his head.

"Well, there you have it," she said with finality. "I could use some help with a few sealing concepts. Mother's journals said that while you don't have the same flare for fuuinjutsu as an Uzumaki, you do have some skill."

Jiraiya rolled his eyes. "Uzumaki aren't the only sealmasters, Brat. Let me show you how it's done!"


End file.
